READINGS  IN  POLITICAL 
PHILOSOPHY 


L 


^leto  gorfc 

THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1914 


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THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO 
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MACMILLAN  &  CO..  LIFTED 

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THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OP  CANADA,  LTD. 
TORONTO 


READINGS  IN 
POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 


BY 

FRANCIS  WILLIAM  COKER,  Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR   OF   POLITICAL    SCIENCE   IN   OHIO 
UNIVERSITY 


iJeto  gorfc 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1914 


COPYRIGHT,  1914 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  December,  1914. 


TO 

WILLIAM  ARCHIBALD  DUNNING 


QOCH 


PREFACE 

In  guiding  college  classes  in  the  study  of  political  theories  the 
writer  has  found  that  the  interest  of  students  is  manifested  more 
naturally  and  fruitfully  when  they  read  directly  from  original 
works  than  when  they  rely  solely  upon  historical  and  expository 
treatises.  For  many  important  works  this  reading  at  first-hand 
is  not  generally  practicable,  because  they  are  not  in  libraries  acces- 
sible to  most  readers,  or  because  they  are  not  available  in  satisfac- 
tory translations.  The  aim  of  this  volume  is  to  furnish  a  handy 
collection  of  readings  from  foremost  political  philosophers.  In 
furtherance  of  this  design  it  has  seemed  wise  to  include  substantial 
parts  of  a  few  preeminent  works  rather  than  to  cover  a  wide  range 
of  writings  with  brief  passages  from  each.  It  is  believed  that  read- 
ing according  to  the  former,  rather  than  the  latter,  plan  will  give 
the  student  the  more  realistic  impression,  and  the  more  effective 
command,  of  fundamental  political  ideas,  and  will  lead  him  to  a 
more  coherent,  if  less  detailed,  view  of  the  evolution  of  political 
thought.  In  order  to  confine  the  matter  within  a  single  volume 
writers  later  than  Bentham  have  been  omitted;  in  this  period, 
speaking  generally,  philosophical  discussions  of  politics  either  are 
exhaustive  disquisitions  upon  fragments  of  the  subject  (e.g.  Thomas 
Hill  Green)  or  they  form  subordinate  parts  of  comprehensive  sys- 
tems of  thought  (e.g.  Auguste,  Comte) ;  for  a  volume  of  readings 
from  works  of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  plan  of  selection  somewhat 
different  from  that  followed  in  this  work  would  be  necessary. 

The  primary  purpose  of  this  work  will  be  fulfilled  if  it  supplies 
helpful  illustrations  for  such  general  histories  of  political  philosophy 
as  those  by  Dunning,  Pollock,  Janet,  Willoughby  and  Bluntschli. 
These  and  other  general  treatises,  besides  special  works  of  exposition 
and  criticism,  are  cited  in  references  appended  to  each  selection. 
The  lists  of  references  are  obviously  not  exhaustive.  They  are  in- 
tended to  guide  the  reader  to  the  particular  works  to  which  he  may 
most  profitably  go  for  full  discussions ;  so  that  for  each  selection  he 
may  obtain  a  setting  and  interpretation  more  satisfactory  than  is 
provided  by  the  slight  introductions  of  this  volume.  The  topics 
in  the  table  of  contents  are  headings  supplied  by  the  writer  for 
his  subdivisions  of  each  selection. 


!\ 


Vll 


viii  PREFACE 

For  the  purpose  of  this  volume  entirely  original  translations 
were  required  only  for  the  selections  from  St.  Thomas  Aquinas, 
Marsiglio  of  Padua,  and  the  Vindicia  contra  Tyrannos.  The 
translations  from  Bodin  and  Grotius  are  in  part  original.  The 
passages  from  Bodin's  De  Republica  were  translated  with  constant 
assistance  from  the  Knolles  translation  of  Bodin's  French  version 
of  the  work.  For  the  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pads  of  Grotius  the  Latin 
text  was  carefully  worked  over  in  order  to  revise  the  translation 
by  Whewell.  For  all  other  selections  the  translations  or  editions 
cited  were  followed  faithfully,  with  minor  changes  in  a  few 
instances. 

The  writer  desires  to  make  grateful  acknowledgment  for  assist- 
ance that  has  been  received  in  the  preparation  of  this  volume. 
Professor  William  A.  Dunning,  of  Columbia  University,  has 
generously  supplied  expert  advice  and  criticism  in  all  parts  of  the 
work,  especially  in  the  translations.  Professor  Edward  G. 
Elliott,  of  Princeton  University,  contributed  valuable  counsel 
as  to  the  general  plan  and  scope  of  the  work. 

The  writer  is  indebted  to  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  for 
the  privilege  of  using  the  passages  from  Conway's  edition  of  The 
Writings  of  Thomas  Paine,  and  to  the  Delegates  of  the  Clarendon 
Press  for  the  selections  from  Montague's  edition  of  Beritham's 
Fragment  on  Government  and  from  Church's  edition  of  Book  I  of 
Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity. 

June  26,  1914. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION xiii 

I.   PLATO i 

Readings  from  The  Republic 3 

1.  The  Origin  of  the  State 3 

2.  The  Governors  and  Protectors  of  the  State  n 

3.  The  Three  Classes  of  the  State 18 

4.  Communism                        > 26 

5.  Government  by  Philosophers 35 

H.   ARISTpTLE      .     .     . '      .  53 

Readings  from  The  Politics 55 

1.  The  Nature,  End  and  Origin  of  the  State 55 

2.  The  Definition  of  Citizenship 61 

3.  Sovereignty 64 

-    4.  Forms  of  State 71 

5.  The  Organs  of  Government 89 

6.  Material  Conditions  of  the  Ideal  State 94 

7.  The  Cause  and  Prevention  of  Revolution 96 

HI.   POLYBIUS 105 

Readings  from  The  Histories 106 

I.  The  Forms  of  Government  and  the  Cycle  of  Constitu- 
tional Revolution 106 

4*2.  The  System  of  Checks  and  Balances 113 

IV.    ST.  THOMAS  AQUINAS      .      .      .      .      .      .....      .      .      .121 

T-     Readings  from  Summa  Theologica  and  De  Regimine  Principum  123 

1.  The  Definition  of  Law 123 

2.  The  Nature  and  Duties  of  Royal  Authority      ....   129 

V.   DANTE 139 

Readings  from  De  Monarchia 140 

4-          i.  The  End  of  the  State 140 

2.  Universal  Empire 146 

3.  The  Divine  Basis  of  Temporal  Authority 150 

VI.   MARSIGLIO 159 

Readings  from  Defensor  Pads 160 

^         I.  The  Purpose  of  the  State 160 

2.  The  Supreme  Legislative  Authority  of  the  People       .      .162 

3.  The  Distinction  between  Legislative  and  Executive  Func- 

tions       165 

VH.    MACHIAVELLI 171 

Readings  from  The  Prince 173 

i.  The  Conduct  of  a  Successful  Ruler 173 

VIE.    CALVIN 189 

•    Readings  from  The  Institutes  of  the  Christian  Religion    .      .      .191 

1.  The  Nature  and  Function  of  Civil  Government     .      .      .191 

2.  The  Duties  of  Magistrates      ...  194 

3.  The  Limits  of  Obedience  Due  to  Civil  Rulers  .      .      .      -195 

ix 


\ 


x  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

IX.   VINDICLE  CONTRA  TYRANNOS 205 

Readings  from  the  Vindicia 207 

1 .  The  Institution  of  the  King  by  the  People        ....  207 

2.  The  Superiority  of  the  People  to  the  King        ....  208 
^-         3.  The  Contractual  Basis  of  Royal  Authority       .      .      .      .213 

4.  The  Right  of  Resistance  to  Tyrants 215 

/  X.   BODIN 225 

Readings  from  De  Republica 226 

\          i.  The  Definition  of  the  State  and  of  Citizenship       .      .      .226 

2.  The  Nature  and  Functions  of  Sovereignty 230 

XI.   HOOKER 241 

Readings  from  The  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity  ....  242 
.  i.  The  Ground  and  Origin  of  Political  Society  ....  242 
•*"  2.  The  Nature,  Authority,  and  Kinds  of  Law  ....  246 

/  XH.   GROTIUS 257 

Readings  from  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pads 259 

1.  The  Rational  Basis  of  International  Law 259 

V       2.  The  Law  of  Nature 266 

3.  The  State  and  Sovereignty 269 

XHI.    MILTON 279 

Readings  from  The  Tenure  of  Kings  and  Magistrates,  Areo- 
pagitica,  and  Ready  and  Easy  Way  to  Establish  a  Free 

»  Commonwealth 281 

•**     I.  The  Origin  of  Government  and  the  Source  and  Limits  of 

its  Authority 281 

2.  Rational  Liberty -?&£ 

3.  The  Character  of  Free  Government 291 

/XIV.   HOBBES 301 

Readings  from  Leviathan      .  302 

1.  The  State  of  Nature  and  the  Laws  of  Nature  ....  302 

2.  The  Origin  and  Nature  of  the  State 316 

3.  Sovereignty 320 

4.  The  Kinds  of  State 327 

5.  Liberty 331 

6.  Civil  Laws 340 

XV.   HARRINGTON 355 

Readings  from  Oceana 356 

1.  Principles  of  Political  Power:  Material  Influences       .      .356 

2.  Psychological  Influences  in  Government 365 

3.  The  Essential  Organs  of  Government 369 

4.  Institutions  for  Safeguarding  the  State 373 

^  XVI.   LOCKE 3§3 

Readings  from  Two  Treatises  of  Government 385 

1.  The  State  of  Nature 385 

2.  Political  Society 393 

3.  Limitations  upon  Government 406 

4.  The  Separations  of  Powers  in  Government       .      .      .      .411 

5.  The  Right  of  Revolution 419 

XVH.   MONTESQUIEU 439 

Readings  from  The  Spirit  of  the  Laws 441 

1.  The  Nature  of  Laws 441 

2.  The  Nature  of  the  Forms  of  Government 446 

3.  The  Principles  of  the  Forms  of  Government     ....   455 

4.  Political  Liberty 463 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAGE 

XVm.   ROUSSEAU 477 

Readings  from  The  Social  Contract 479 

1.  The  Problem  of  Political  Philosophy 479 

2.  The  Social  Contract 483 

3.  Sovereignty  and  Law 486 

4.  Government:  Its  Nature  and  Forms 496 

5.  The  Subordination  of  Government  to  Sovereign    .      .      .  504 

XIX.   PAINE 517 

Readings  from  Common  Sense  and  The  Rights  of  Man   .      .      .518 

1.  The  Rights  of  Man 518 

2.  The  Origin  and  Sphere  of  Government 522 

3.  Representative  and  Republican  Government    ....  527 

XX.   BENTHAM - 535 

Readings  from  A  Fragment  on  Government 536 

1.  The  Distinction  between  Political  and  Natural  Society    .  536 

2.  The  Utilitarian  Basis  of  Political  Society 542 

3.  The  Character  of  Free  Government 547 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 561 

INDEX      .     .  .569 


INTRODUCTION 

Dominant  interest  in  political  science  to-day  is  in  contemporary 
and  practical  aspects  of  the  subject.  Many  problems  appearing 
within  this  field  require  for  their  solution,  however,  careful  reason- 
ing in  terms  which  are  general  and  abstract;  this  applies  not  so 
much  to  definitions  as  to  considerations  of  the  purposes  and  means 
of  government.  It  seems  manifest,  for  example,  that  for  both 
our  national  and  our  commonwealth  politics  we  need  deliberate 
discussion  concerning  our  intent  as  to  the  functions  of  our  political 
system.  Such  an  examination  is  of  immediate  practical  conse- 
quence; but  it  cannot  be  completed  through  considerations  of 
experience  alone.  However  fully  and  precisely  we  record,  com- 
pare and  systematize  our  observations  of  experience,  we  cannot 
speak  conclusively  of  the  success  or  failure  of  this  or  that  govern- 
mental design  or  of  the  justification  of  the  state's  entrance  into 
a  proposed  new  sphere  of  action,  until  we  attain  better  founded 
ideas  than  most  of  us  now  possess  as  to  what  in  general  we  expect 
to  accomplish  through  our  agencies  of  civil  government.  The  issue 
between  conservatism  and  progressivism  has,  in  this  country  as 
in  England,  come  to  be  very  much  less  than  it  once  was  a  question 
of  formal  rights  and  precedents.  Whether  or  not  that  issue  can 
cease  entirely  to  be  such  a  question,  it  seems  clear  that  discussion  of 
differences  involved  in  the  issue  will  continue  to  be  highly  oppor- 
tunist and  tentative  unless  we  are  brought  to  realize  that  the  argu- 
ment must  proceed  from  and  tend  toward  general  propositions 
as  to  the  character  and  province  of  government.  What  is  here 
said  is  not  so  much  a  plea  for  abstract  speculation  as  for  a  neglected 
side  of  practical  reflection  concerning  our  expectations  from  politi- 
cal action. 

The  American  lack  of  political  imagination  has  been  pointed 
out  by  several  critics  of  our  public  life.1  There  is  probably 
ground  for  the  view  that  we  have  no  clear  political  anticipations, 
no  comprehensive  and  constructive  political  ideals,  no  effective 
notions  as  to  the  relations  of  political  organization  to  individual 

1This  criticism  is  effectively  presented  in  H.  G.  Wells'  essay  on  "State-blind- 
ness" in  his  The  Future  in  America  (1906),  and  also  in  the  introductory 
pages  of  Herbert  Croly's  The  Promise  of  American  Life  (1909). 

xiii 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

and  social  welfare,  no  determining  ideas  as  to  the  line  between 
individual  freedom  and  social  discipline. 

Since  the  time  of  Plato  there  has  been,  in  every  philosophic 
age,  some  inquiry  as  to  the  justification  of  political  organization 
in  general,  as  to  the  relative  merits  of  different  political  forms,  and 
as  to  the  appropriate  position  and  privileges  of  the  individual  as 
master,  member,  or  subject  of  the  political  order  of  society.  Why 
do  we  have  political  organization?  What  in  our  present  condition 
do  we  owe  to  it?  What  future  benefits  may  we  properly  expect 
to  derive  from  it?  Are  its  purposes  characteristically  manifold 
and  changing,  or  are  they  ultimately  reducible  to  a  few  limited 
objects  or  to  some  single  end?  What  is  its  best  form?  Who 
should  control  it?  What  is  its  proper  relation  to  the  ideas  and 
sentiments  of  the  community  at  its  basis?  What  spheres  of 
individual  and  social  life  is  it  incompetent  to  enter?  Philoso- 
phers and  publicists  of  various  types  have  sought  to  answer 
these  questions  in  abstract  terms;  in  other  words,  their  answers, 
though  in  many  instances  strongly  influenced  by  interest  in  special 
cases  within  their  immediate  view,  were  intended  as  statements 
of  general  truth,  conceived  apart  from  such  cases. 

The  study  of  the  reasoning  in  consideration  of  such  questions  is  the 
study  of  political  philosophy.  Obviously,  advocates  of  this  study 
should  not  rest  its  claims  for  attention  upon  any  pretension  that  it 
alone  can  supply  the  key  to  problems  of  our  time,  or  that  it  can  pro- 
vide clear  projects  for  emendment  of  our  political  practice.  As 
with  other  historical  and  philosophical  studies,  its  purposes  are 
chiefly  intellectual,  not  technical.  Moreover,  in  what  is  said 
above,  it  is  not  intended  to  imply  that  from  a  review  of  the  political 
thought  of  the  past,  any  complete  and  definite  political  creed  can 
be  framed  for  the  present.  But  such  study  has  practical  value  in 
that  it  lends  aid  to  the  formation  of  habits  of  more  thorough  and 
candid  examination  of  the  meaning  and  tendency  of  our  political 
undertakings. 

The  purpose  of  this  volume  is  to  make  more  accessible,  for  read- 
ing at  first-hand  in  this  field,  significant  parts  of  some  greater 
writings  in  political  philosophy.  By  supplying  illustrative  ma- 
terial the  volume  may  serve  to  supplement,  and  at  points  vivify, 
general  works  in  the  history  and  exposition  of  political  theories — 
especially,  Professor  Dunning 's  indispensable  volumes1  and 
Sir  Frederick  Pollock's  brief  survey.2  The  particular  selections 

^Political  Theories,  Ancient  and  Medieval  and  Political  Theories  from  Luther 
to  Montesquieu. 

^History  of  the  Science  of  Politics, 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

are  the  result  of  eliminations  necessary  to  bring  within  one  volume 
readings  regarded  by  the  writer  as  most  adaptable,  within  such 
compass,  for  the  purpose  in  hand.  The  space  allotted  to  the  re- 
spective authors  could  not,  for  obvious  reasons,  be  measured  by 
their  relative  importance.  In  a  brief  introduction  preceding  each 
selection  attempt  is  made  to  state  in  concise  form  leading  facts 
of  the  life  of  the  author,  and  to  indicate  important  points  of  his 
contribution  to  the  development  of  political  theory.  Manifestly, 
nothing  new  is  presented  in  these  introductions.  Following  each 
selection  are  citations  of  works  in  which  the  author's  life  and  times 
are  described  in  detail  and  his  doctrines  authoritatively  inter- 
preted and  estimated. 


PLATO 


I.     PLATO  (B.C.  427-347?) 
INTRODUCTION 

In  the  literature  of  antiquity  it  is  only  in  the  works  of  the 
Greek  philosophers  that  we  find  systematic  speculation  upon  the 
nature  and  functions  of  political  institutions.  Among  oriental 
peoples  civil  government,  as  well  as"its  particular  forms  and  sphere 
of  action  at  any  time,  were  in  general  accepted  as  sufficiently 
sanctioned  by  religion  and  custom.  This  attitude  afforded  no 
foundation  for  a  study  of  the  origin  or  justification  of  the  state 
or  for  an  examination  of  the  comparative  excellences  of  different 
forms  of  government.  The  Greeks,  on  the  other  hand,  looked 
more  speculatively  and  critically  upon  the  social  relations  of  man, 
as  well  as  upon  other  aspects  of  his  environment.  Moreover,  the 
active  inter-communication  between  a  number  of  small  but  vigor- 
ous Greek  states,  and  the  frequent  transformations  in  organiza- 
tion passed  through  by  each,  supplied  from  experience  a  stimulus 
to  comparative  and  critical  analysis  of  political  institutions  and 
practices.1 

The  study  of  systematic  political  philosophy  begins  properly  with 
Plato.  Oriental  and  Greek  thinkers  before  Plato's  time  took  note 
of  some  of  the  fundamental  questions  of  politics,  and  devoted 
some  consideration  to  them;  but  in  their  writings  discussions  of 
such  subjects  held  incidental  and  subordinate  place.2  In  the 
works  of  Plato,  on  the  other  hand,  the  state  constitutes  a  cardinal 
concept,  and  the  philosophic  examination  of  political  questions  is 
for  the  first  time  comprehensively  devised  and  reasoned.  To 
Plato  political  theory  was  an  essential  part  of  philosophy;  for, 

1  On  the  origin  of  political  thought  in  Greece,  cf.  Barker,  Political  Thought  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  pp.  1-16;   Willoughby,  Political  Theories  of  the  Ancient 
World,  ch.  iv. 

2  For  analysis  of  political  ideas  in  legalistic  and  ethical  writings  of  the  Hindoos, 
Chinese,  and  other  oriental  peoples,  cf.  Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique, 
Vol.  I,  pp.  1-51 ;  Willoughby,  op.  cit.t  chs.  ii  and  iii;  Gumplowicz,  Geschichte  der 
Staatstheorien,  pp.  7-22. 

For  a  view  of  minor  political  discussions  in  poetical  and  narrative  works  of 
the  Greeks  prior  to  Plato,  cf.  Barker,  op.  tit.,  ch.  i;  Dunning,  Political  Theories, 
Ancient  and  Mediaeval,  pp.  18-23;  Willoughby,  op.  cit.,  chs.  v  and  vi;  Janet, 
op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  53-95;  Gumplowicz,  op.  cit.,  pp.  23-32. 

1 


2  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

with  him,  knowledge  of  perfect  human  life  under  ideal  conditions 
was  a  characteristic  aim  of  philosophical  inquiry;  and  he  con- 
sidered that  a  conception  of  this  perfection  of  life  was  attainable 
only  through  a  correct  understanding  of  the  relations  which  spring 
necessarily  from  the  community-life  of  men.  Thus  in  his  scheme 
of  thought  philosophy,  ethics,  and  politics  are  closely  interwoven. 

The  life  of  Plato  is  not  known  in  great  detail.  For  our  purpose 
it  is  sufficient  to  note  a  few  leading  facts  of  his  life  and  time.  He 
was  born  of  an  aristocratic  Athenian  family.  He  lived  during  the 
era  of  political  degeneration  and  turbulence  in  Athens;  this  is  the 
period  of  the  Peloponnesian  War,  of  the  ensuing  wars  in  northern 
Greece,  and  of  the  beginning  of  the  Macedonian  invasion,  through- 
out all  of  which  Athens  steadily  declined  in  power  and  prestige. 
He  was  a  disciple  and  friend  of  Socrates,  whose  execution  occurred 
during  Plato's  early  manhood,  and  whose  doctrines  are  known  to 
us  principally  through  Plato's  writings.  Throughout  the  last 
fifty  years  of  his  life  he  was  lecturer  and  teacher  to  a  small  group 
of  pupils,  who  met  at  a  pleasure-grove,  called  " Academe,"  in  the 
vicinity  of  Athens.  The  school  there  originated  by  him  was 
perpetuated  by  his  disciples  as  a  permanent  "philosophical  school 
for  lectures,  study,  and  friendly  meetings  of  studious  men;"1 
whence  the  philosophic  successors  of  Plato  are  called  "Acade- 
micians" or,  collectively,  the  "Greek  Academy." 

The  basis  of  Plato's  philosophical  system  is  Socrates'  doctrine 
of  reality.  According  to  this  doctrine,  reality  inheres  only  in  the 
ideas  of  things — that  is,  in  the  perfect,  permanent,  immutable, 
self -existent  entities  which  underlie  the  changing  and  imperfect  ob- 
jects of  perception;  the  latter  are  merely  the  superficial  appearances 
of  things.  Plato  interpreted  and  developed  this  theory  and  its 
ethical  application  in  the  identification  of  virtue  with  knowledge  of 
absolute  reality.  All  of  his  writings  are  in  the  form  of  "  dialogues  " ; 
these  are  critical  and  argumentative  conversations  which  are  repre- 
sented as  having  taken  place  between  a  principal  speaker — who 
is  Socrates  in  most  of  the  dialogues — and  other  associates  and 
friends  of  Plato. 

The  work  in  which  Plato's  important  political  doctrines  appear 
is  The  Republic,  generally  pronounced  the  greatest  of  all  his  works. 
Here  particularly  the  conception  of  the  state  is  closely  involved 

1Grote,  Plato  and  the  Other  Contemporaries  of  Socrates,  Vol.  I,  p.  133. 


PLATO  3 

in  a  general  ethical  and  philosophical  theory.  The  object  of  dis- 
cussion in  this  dialogue  appears  to  the  attainment  of  the  correct 
definition  of  justice,  as  a  virtue  of  man.  Proceeding  upon  the 
hypothesis  that  such  a  definition  can  best  be  discovered  through 
an  analysis  of  justice  as  it  appears  in  similar,  though  larger  and 
clearer,  outline  in  the  'state,  Socrates  leads  the  argument  into  a 
fundamental  examination  of  the  nature  of  the  state.  This  exam- 
ination advances  through  the  following  main  stages:  the  founda- 
tion of  the  state  in  the  division  of  labor,  which  arises  from  the 
multiplicity  of  human  wants  and  the  naturally  resulting  economic 
distribution  of  the  work  of  filling  these  wants;  the  principles  de- 
termining the  selection  and  training  of  a  special  protecting  and 
governing  class;  the  definition  of  the  cardinal  virtues  of  the  state 
and  of  man,  this  definition  being  obtained  through  discovering 
for  each  class  of  citizens  its  peculiar  function  in  the  work  of  the 
body  politic,  and,  by  analogy,  for  each  human  faculty  its  particu- 
lar function  in  individual  human  conduct ;  a  discussion  of  the  ideal 
political  supremacy  of  philosophers,  and  a  description  of  their 
proper  education  and  of  their  segregated  life — with  communism 
of  family  and  property;  finally,  the  explanation  of  the  transitions 
from  this  ideal  form  of  government  through  successively  lower 
forms. 

Plato's  exposition  suffers,  in  succinctness  and  precision,  from 
the  tautology  and  discursiveness  of  his  style;  this  is  a  result  of 
the  dialogue  form,  and  of  the  poetical,  mythical,  and  allegorical 
digressions.  It  is,  therefore,  difficult  to  present,  by  means  of 
selected  readings,  the  development  of  his  ideas  in  logically  co- 
herent order.  However,  the  passages  that  follow,  from  The 
Republic,  embody  the  principal  conceptions  of  Plato's  political 
philosophy. 


READINGS  FROM  THE  REPUBLIC  l 
1.     The  Origin  of  the  State  2 

Glaucon  and  the  rest  entreated  me  by  all  means  not  to  let  the 
question  drop,  but  to  proceed  in  the  investigation.  They  wanted 

1  The  selections  are  taken  from  The  Republic  of  Plato,  translated  into  English, 
by  Benjamin  Jowett,  third  edition,  Oxford,  1888.  Published  by  the  Clarendon 
Press. 

2 II,  369-374.    Jowett,  pp.  48-56. 


4  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

to  arrive  at  the  truth,  first,  about  the  nature  of  justice  and  in- 
justice, and  secondly,  about  their  relative  advantages.  I  told  them, 
what  I  really  thought,  that  the  inquiry  would  be  of  a  serious  na- 
ture, and  would  require  very  good  eyes.  Seeing  then,  I  said,  that 
we  are  no  great  wits,  I  think  that  we  had  better  adopt  a  method 
which  I  may  illustrate  thus:  suppose  that  a  short-sighted  person 
had  been  asked  by  some  one  to  read  small  letters  from  a  distance; 
and  it  occurred  to  some  one  else  that  they  might  be  found  in 
another  place  which  was  larger  and  in  which  the  letters  were 
larger — if  they  were  the  same  and  he  could  read  the  larger  letters 
first,  and  then  proceed  to  the  lesser — this  would  have  been  thought 
a  rare  piece  of  good  fortune. 

r  Very  true,  said  Adeimantus;  but  how  does  the  illustration  apply 
to  our  inquiry? 

I  will  tell  you,  I  replied;  justice,  which  is  the  subject  of  our 
inquiry,  is,  as  you  know,  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  virtue  of  an 
individual,  and  sometimes  as  the  virtue  of  a  state. 

True,  he  replied. 

And  is  not  a  state  larger  than  an  individual? 

It  is. 

Then  in  the  larger  the  quantity  of  justice  is  likely  to  be  larger 
and  more  easily  discernible.  I  propose  therefore  that  we  inquire 
into  the  nature  of  justice  and  injustice,  first  as  they  appear  in  the 
state,  and  secondly  in  the  individual,  proceeding  from  the  greater 
to  the  lesser  and  comparing  them. 

That,  he  said,  is  an  excellent  proposal. 

And  if  we  imagine  the  state  in  process  of  creation,  we  shall  see 
the  justice  and  injustice  of  the  state  in  process  of  creation  also. 

I  dare  say. 

When  the  state  is  completed  there  may  be  a  hope  that  the  object 
of  our  search  will  be  more  easily  discovered. 

Yes,  far  more  easily. 

But  ought  we  to  attempt  to  construct  one?  I  said;  for  to  do  so, 
as  I  am  inclined  to  think,  will  be  a  very  serious  task.  Reflect 
therefore. 

I  have  reflected,  said  Adeimantus,  and  am  anxious  that  you 
should  proceed. 

A  state,  I  said,  arises,  as  I  conceive,  out  of  the  needs  of  man- 
kind; no  one  is  self-sufficing,  but  all  of  us  have  many  wants.  Can 
any  other  origin  of  a  state  be  imagined? 

There  can  be  no  other. 

Then,  as  we  have  many  wants,  and  many  persons  are  needed 
to  supply  them,  one  takes  a  helper  for  one  purpose  and  another  for 


PLATO  5 

another;  and  when  these  partners  and  helpers  are  gathered  to- 
gether in  one  habitation  the  body  of  inhabitants  is  termed  a  state. 

True,  he  said. 

And  they  exchange  with  one  another,  and  one  gives,  and  an- 
other receives,  under  the  idea  that  the  exchange  will  be  for  their 
good. 

Very  true. 

Then,  I  said,  let  us  begin  and  create  in  idea  a  state ;  and  yet  the 
true  creator  is  necessity,  who  is  the  mother  of  our  invention. 

Of  course,  he  replied. 

Now  the  first  and  greatest  of  necessities  is  food,  which  is  the 
condition  of  life  and  existence. 

Certainly. 

The  second  is  a  dwelling  and  the  third  clothing  and  the  like. 

True. 

And  now  let  us  see  how  our  city  will  be  able  to  supply  this 
great  demand:  We  may  suppose  that  one  man  is  a  husbandman, 
another  a  builder,  some  one  else  a  weaver — shall  we  add  to  them 
a  shoemaker,  or  perhaps  some  other  purveyor  to  our  bodily 
wants? 

Quite  right. 

The  barest  notion  of  a  state  must  include  four  or  five  men. 

Clearly. 

And  how  will  they  proceed?  Will  each  bring  the  result  of  his 
labors  into  a  common  stock? — the  individual  husbandman,  for 
example,  producing  for  four,  and  laboring  four  times  as  long  and 
as  much  as  he  need  in  the  provision  of  food  with  which  he  supplies 
others  as  well  as  himself;  or  will  he  have  nothing  to  do  with  others 
and  not  be  at  the  trouble  of  producing  for  them,  but  provide  for 
himself  alone  a  fourth  of  the  food  in  a  fourth  of  the  time,  and  in 
the  remaining  three-fourths  of  his  time  be  employed  in  making 
a  house  or  a  coat  or  a  pair  of  shoes,  having  no  partnership  with 
others,  but  supplying  himself  all  his  own  wants? 

Adeimantus  thought  that  he  should  aim  at  producing  food  only 
and  not  at  producing  everything. 

Probably,  I"  replied,  that  would  be  the  better  way;  and  when  I 
hear  you  say  this,  I  am  myself  reminded  that  we  are  not  all  alike; 
there  are  diversities  of  natures  among  us  which  are  adapted  to 
different  occupations. 

Very  true. 

And  will  you  have  a  work  better  done  when  the  workman  has 
many  occupations,  or  when  he  has  only  one? 

When  he  has  only  one. 


6  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Further,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  work  is  spoiled  when  not 
done  at  the  right  time? 

No  doubt. 

For  business  is  not  disposed  to  wait  until  the  doer  of  the  business 
is  at  leisure ;  but  the  doer  must  follow  up  what  he  is  doing,  and  make 
the  business  his  first  object. 

He  must. 

And  if  so,  we  must  infer  that  all  things  are  produced  more  plenti- 
fully and  easily  and  of  a  better  quality  when  one  man  does  one 
thing  which  is  natural  to  him  and  does  it  at  the  right  time,  and 
leaves  other  things. 

Undoubtedly. 

Then  more  than  four  citizens  will  be  required;  for  the  husband- 
man will  not  make  his  own  plough  or  mattock,  or  other  implements 
of  agriculture,  if  they  are  to  be  good  for  anything.  Neither  will 
the  builder  make  his  tools — and  he  too  needs  many;  and  in  like 
manner  the  weaver  and  shoemaker. 

True. 

Then  carpenters,  and  smiths,  and  many  other  artisans,  will  be 
sharers  in  our  little  state,  which  is  already  beginning  to  grow? 

True. 

Yet  even  if  we  add  neatherds,  shepherds,  and  other  herdsmen, 
in  order  that  our  husbandmen  may  have  oxen  to  plough  with, 
and  builders  as  well  as  husbandmen  may  have  draught  cattle, 
and  curriers  and  weavers  fleeces  and  hides, — still  our  state  will 
not  be  very  large. 

That  is  true;  yet  neither  will  it  be  a  very  small  state  which 
contains  all  these. 

Then,  again,  there  is  the  situation  of  the  city — to  find  a  place 
where  nothing  need  be  imported  is  well  nigh  impossible. 

Impossible. 

Then  there  must  be  another  class  of  citizens  who  will  bring  the 
required  supply  from  another  city? 

There  must. 

But  if  the  trader  goes  empty-handed,  having  nothing  which  they 
require  who  would  supply  his  need,  he  will  come  back  empty- 
handed. 

That  is  certain. 

And  therefore  what  they  produce  at  home  must  be  not  only 
enough  for  themselves,  but  such  both  in  quantity  and  quality 
as  to  accommodate  those  from  whom  their  wants  are  supplied. 

Very  true. 

Then  more  husbandmen  and  more  artisans  will  be  required? 


PLATO  7 

They  will. 

Not  to  mention  the  importers  and  exporters,  who  are  called 
merchants? 

Yes. 

Then  we  shall  want  merchants? 

We  shall. 

And  if  merchandise  is  to  be  carried  over  the  sea,  skilfid  sailors 
will  also  be  needed,  and  in  considerable  numbers? 

Yes,  in  considerable  numbers. 

Then,  again,  within  the  city,  how  will  they  exchange  their  pro- 
ductions? To  secure  such  an  exchange  was,  as  you  will  remember, 
one  of  our  principal  objects  when  we  formed  them  into  a  society 
and  constituted  a  state. 

Clearly  they  will  buy  and  sell. 

Then  they  will  need  a  market-place,  and  a  money-token  for 
purposes  of  exchange. 

Certainly. 

Suppose  now  that  a  husbandman,  or  an  artisan,  brings  some 
production  to  market,  and  he  comes  at  a  time  when  there  is  no 
one  to  exchange  with  him, — is  he  to  leave  his  calling  and  sit  idle 
in  the  market-place? 

Not  at  all;  he  will  find  people  there  who,  seeing  the  want, 
undertake  the  office  of  salesmen.  In  well-ordered  states  they 
are  commonly  those  who  are  the  weakest  in  bodily  strength,  and 
therefore  of  little  use  for  any  other  purpose;  their  duty  is  to  be 
in  the  market,  and  to  give  money  in  exchange  for  goods  to  those 
who  desire  to  sell  and  to  take  money  from  those  who  desire  to 
buy. 

This  want,  then,  creates  a  class  of  retail-traders  in  our  state. 
Is  not  " retailer"  the  term  which  is  applied  to  those  who  sit  in  the 
market-place  engaged  in  buying  and  selling,  while  those  who  wan- 
der from  one  city  to  another  are  called  merchants? 

Yes,  he  said. 

And  there  is  another  class  of  servants,  who  are  intellectually 
hardly  on  the  level  of  companionship;  still  they  have  plenty  of 
bodily  strength  for  labor,  which  accordingly  they  sell,  and  are 
called,  if  I  do  not  mistake,  hirelings,  hire  being  the  name  which 
is  given  to  the  price  of  their  labor. 

True. 

Then  hirelings  will  help  to  make  up  our  population? 

Yes. 

And  now,  Adeimantus,  is  our  state  matured  and  perfected? 

I  think  so. 


8  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Where,  then,  is  justice,  and  where  is  injustice,  and  in  what 
part  of  the  state  did  they  spring  up? 

Probably  in  the  dealings  of  these  citizens  with  one  another. 
I  cannot  imagine  that  they  are  more  likely  to  be  found  anywhere 
else. 

I  dare  say  that  you  are  right  in  your  suggestion,  I  said;  we  had 
better  think  the  matter  out,  and  not  shrink  from  the  inquiry. 

Let  us  then  consider,  first  of  all,  what  will  be  their  way  of  life, 
now  that  we  have  thus  established  them.  Will  they  not  produce 
corn,  and  wine,  and  clothes,  and  shoes,  and  build  houses  for  them- 
selves? And  when  they  are  housed,  they  will  work,  in  summer, 
commonly,  stripped  and  barefoot,  but  in  winter  substantially 
clothed  and  shod.  They  will  feed  on  barley-meal  and  flour  of 
wheat,  baking  and  kneading  them,  making  noble  cakes  and  loaves; 
these  they  will  serve  up  on  a  mat  of  reeds  or  on  clean  leaves, 
themselves  reclining  the  while  upon  beds  strewn  with  yew  or 
myrtle.  And  they  and  their  children  will  feast,  drinking  of  the 
wine  which  they  have  made,  wearing  garlands  on  their  heads,  and 
hymning  the  praises  of  the  gods,  in  happy  converse  with  one  an- 
other. And  they  will  take  care  that  their  families  do  not  exceed 
their  means;  having  an  eye  to  poverty  or  war. 

But,  said  Glaucon,  interposing,  you  have  not  given  them  a 
relish  to  their  meal. 

True,  I  replied,  I  had  forgotten;  of  course  they  must  have  a 
relish — salt,  and  olives,  and  cheese,  and  they  will  boil  roots  and 
herbs  such  as  country  people  prepare;  for  a  dessert  we  shall  give 
them  figs,  and  peas,  and  beans;  and  they  will  roast  myrtle-berries 
and  acorns  at  the  fire,  drinking  in  moderation.  And  with  such 
a  diet  they  may  be  expected  to  live  in  peace  and  health  to  a  good 
old  age,  and  bequeath  a  similar  life  to  their  children  after  them. 

Yes,  Socrates,  he  said,  and  if  you  were  providing  for  a  city  of 
pigs,  how  else  would  you  feed  the  beasts? 

But  what  would  you  have,  Glaucon?  I  replied. 

Why,  he  said,  you  should  give  them  the  ordinary  conveniences 
of  life.  People  who  are  to  be  comfortable  are  accustomed  to  lie 
on  sofas,  and  dine  off  tables,  and  they  should  have  sauces  and 
sweets  in  the  modern  style. 

Yes,  I  said,  now  I  understand:  the  question  which  you  would 
have  me  consider  is,  not  only  how  a  state,  but  how  a  luxurious 
state  is  created;  and  possibly  there  is  no  harm  in  this,  for  in  such 
a  state  we  shall  be  more  likely  to  see  how  justice  and  injustice 
originate.  In  my  opinion  the  true  and  healthy  constitution  of  the 
state  is  the  one  which  I  have  described.  But  if  you  wish  also  to 


PL  A  TO  9 

see  a  state  at  fever-heat,  I  have  no  objection.  For  I  suspect 
that  many  will  not  be  satisfied  with  the  simpler  way  of  life.  They 
will  be  for  adding  sofas,  and  tables,  and  other  furniture;  also 
dainties,  and  perfumes,  and  incense,  and  courtesans,  and  cakes, 
all  these  not  of  one  sort  only,  but  in  every  variety;  we  must  go 
beyond  the  necessaries  of  which  I  was  at  first  speaking,  such  as 
houses,  and  clothes,  and  shoes:  the  arts  of  the  painter  and  the 
embroiderer  will  have  to  be  set  in  motion,  and  gold  and  ivory  and 
all  sorts  of  materials  must  be  procured. 

True,  he  said. 

Then  we  must  enlarge  our  borders;  for  the  original  healthy 
state  is  no  longer  sufficient.  Now  will  the  city  have  to  fill  and 
swell  with  a  multitude  of  callings  which  are  not  required  by  any 
natural  want;  such  as  the  whole  tribe  of  hunters  and  actors,  of 
whom  one  large  class  have  to  do  with  forms  and  colors;  another 
will  be  the  votaries  of  music — poets  and  their  attendant  train  of 
rhapsodists,  players,  dancers,  contractors;  also  makers  of  divers 
kinds  of  articles,  including  women's  dresses.  And  we  shall  want 
more  servants.  Will  not  tutors  be  also  in  request,  and  nurses 
wet  and  dry,  tirewomen  and  barbers,  as  well  as  confectioners  and 
cooks;  and  swineherds,  too,  who  were  not  needed  and  therefore 
had  no  place  in  the  former  edition  of  our  state,  but  are  needed  now? 
They  must  not  be  forgotten:  and  there  will  be  animals  of  many 
other  kinds,  if  people  eat  them. 

Certainly. 

And  living  in  this  way  we  shall  have  much  greater  need  of  phy- 
sicians than  before? 

Much  greater. 

And  the  country  which  was  enough  to  support  the  original 
inhabitants  will  be  too  small  now,  and  not  enough? 

Quite  true. 

Then  a  slice  of  our  neighbor's  land  will  be  wanted  by  us  for 
pasture  and  tillage,  and  they  will  want  a  slice  of  ours,  if,  like  our- 
selves, they  exceed  the  limit  of  necessity,  and  give  themselves  up 
to  the  unlimited  accumulation  of  wealth? 

That,  Socrates,  will  be  inevitable. 

And  so  we  shall  go  to  war,  Glaucon.    Shall  we  not? 

Most  certainly,  he  replied. 

Then,  without  determining  as  yet  whether  war  does  good  or  harm, 
thus  much  we  may  affirm,  that  now  we  have  discovered  war  to  be 
derived  from  causes  which  are  also  the  causes  of  almost  all  the 
evils  in  states,  private  as  well  as  public. 

Undoubtedly. 


10  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

And  our  state  must  once  more  enlarge;  and  this  time  the  en- 
largement will  be  nothing  short  of  a  whole  army,  which  will  have 
to  go  out  and  fight  with  the  invaders  for  all  that  we  have,  as  well 
as  for  the  things  and  persons  whom  we  were  describing  above. 

Why?  he  said;  are  they  not  capable  of  defending  themselves? 

No,  I  said;  not  if  we  were  right  in  the  principle  which  was 
acknowledged  by  all  of  us  when  we  were  framing  the  state:  the 
principle,  as  you  will  remember,  was  that  one  man  cannot  practise 
many  arts  with  success. 

Very  true,  he  said. 

But  is  not  war  an  art? 

Certainly. 

And  an  art  requiring  as  much  attention  as  shoemaking? 

Quite  true. 

And  the  shoemaker  was  not  allowed  by  us  to  be  a  husband- 
man, or  a  weaver,  or  a  builder — in  order  that  we  might  have  our 
shoes  well  made ;  but  to  him  and  to  every  other  worker  was  assigned 
one  work  for  which  he  was  by  nature  fitted,  and  at  that  he  was 
to  continue  working  all  his  life  long  and  at  no  other;  he  was  not 
to  let  opportunities  slip,  and  then  he  would  become  a  good  work- 
man. Now  nothing  can  be  more  important  than  that  the  work 
of  a  soldier  should  be  well  done.  But  is  war  an  art  so  easily  ac- 
quired that  a  man  may  be  a  warrior  who  is  also  a  husbandman,  or 
shoemaker,  or  other  artisan;  although  no  one  in. the  world  would 
be  a  good  dice  or  draught  player  who  merely  took  up  the  game  as 
a  recreation,  and  had  not  from  his  earliest  years  devoted  himself 
to  this  and  nothing  else?  No  tools  will  make  a  man  a  skilled 
workman,  or  master  of  defence,  nor  be  of  any  use  to  him  who  has 
not  learned  how  to  handle  them,  and  has  never  bestowed  any 
attention  upon  them.  How  then  will  he  who  takes  up  a  shield 
or  other  implement  of  war  become  a  good  fighter  all  in  a  day, 
whether  with  heavy-armed  or  any  other  kind  of  troops? 

Yes,  he  said,  the  tools  which  would  teach  men  their  own  use 
would  be  beyond  price. 

And  the  higher  the  duties  of  the  guardian,  I  said,  the  more 
time,  and  skill,  and  art,  and  application  will  be  needed  by  him? 

No  doubt,  he  replied. 

Will  he  not  also  require  natural  aptitude  for  his  calling? 

Certainly. 

Then  it  will  be  our  duty  to  select,  if  we  can,  natures  which  are 
fitted  for  the  task  of  guarding  the  city? 

It  will. 


PLATO  11 

2.     The  Governors  and  Protectors  of  the  State  l 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  elder  must  rule  the  younger. 

Clearly. 

And  that  the  best  of  these  must  rule. 

That  is  also  clear. 

Now,  are  not  the  best  husbandmen  those  who  are  most  devoted 
to  husbandry? 

Yes. 

And  as  we  are  to  have  the  best  of  guardians  for  our  city,  must 
they  not  be  those  who  have  most  the  character  of  guardians? 

Yes. 

And  to  this  end  they  ought  to  be  wise  and  efficient,  and  to  have 
a  special  care  of  the  state? 

True. 

And  a  man  will  be  most  likely  to  care  about  that  which  he  loves? 

To  be  sure. 

And  he  will  be  most  likely  to  love  that  which  he  regards  as 
having  the  same  interests  with  himself,  and  that  of  which  the 
good  or  evil  fortune  is  supposed  by  him  at  any  time  most  to  affect 
his  own? 

Very  true,  he  replied. 

Then  there  must  be  a  selection.  Let  us  note  among  the  guard- 
ians those  who  in  their  whole  life  show  the  greatest  eagerness  to 
do  what  is  for  the  good  of  their  country,  and  the  greatest  repug- 
nance to  do  what  is  against  her  interests. 

Those  are  the  right  men. 

And  they  will  have  to  be  watched  at  every  age,  in  order  that 
we  may  see  whether  they  preserve  their  resolution,  and  never, 
under  the  influence  either  of  force  or  enchantment,  forget  or  cast 
off  their  sense  of  duty  to  the  state. 

How  cast  off?  he  said. 

I  will  explain  to  you,  I  replied.  A  resolution  may  go  out  of  a 
man's  mind  either  with  his  will  or  against  his  will;  with  his  will 
when  he  gets  rid  of  a  falsehood  and  learns  better,  against  his  will 
whenever  he  is  deprived  of  a  truth. 

I  understand,  he  said,  the  willing  loss  of  a  resolution;  the  mean- 
ing of  the  unwilling  I  have  yet  to  learn. 

Why,  I  said,  do  you  not  see  that  men  are  unwillingly  deprived 
of  good,  and  willingly  of  evil?  Is  not  to  have  lost  the  truth  an 
evil,  and  to  possess  the  truth  a  good?  and  you  would  agree  that 
to  conceive  things  as  they  are  is  to  possess  the  truth? 

1  III,  412  to  IV,  421.    Jowett,  pp.  100-109. 


12  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Yes,  he  replied;  I  agree  with  you  in  thinking  that  mankind  are 
deprived  of  truth  against  their  will. 

And  is  not  this  involuntary  deprivation  caused  either  by  theft, 
or  force,  or  enchantment? 

Still,  he  replied,  I  do  not  understand  you. 

I  fear  that  I  must  have  been  talking  darkly,  like  the  tragedians. 
I  only  mean  that  some  men  are  changed  by  persuasion  and  that 
others  forget;  argument  steals  away  the  hearts  of  one  class,  and 
time  of  the  other;  and  this  I  call  theft.  Now  you  understand 
me? 

Yes. 

Those  again  who  are  forced,  are  those  whom  the  violence  of 
some  pain  or  grief  compels  to  change  their  opinion. 

I  understand,  he  said,  and  you  are  quite  right. 

And  you  would  also  acknowledge  that  the  enchanted  are  those 
who  change  their  minds  either  under  the  softer  influence  of  pleasure, 
or  the  sterner  influence  of  fear? 

Yes,  he  said;  everything  that  deceives  may  be  said  to  enchant. 

Therefore,  as  I  was  just  now  saying,  we  must  inquire  who  are  the 
best  guardians  of  their  own  conviction  that  what  they  think  the 
interest  of  the  state  is  to  be  the  rule  of  their  lives.  We  must 
watch  them  from  their  youth  upwards,  and  make  them  perform 
actions  in  which  they  are  most  likely  to  forget  or  to  be  deceived, 
and  he  who  remembers  and  is  not  deceived  is  to  be  selected,  and  he 
who  fails  in  the  trial  is  to  be  rejected.  That  will  be  the  way? 

Yes. 

And  there  should  also  be  toils  and  pains  and  conflicts  prescribed 
for  them,  in  which  they  will  be  made  to  give  further  proof  of  the 
same  qualities. 

Very  right,  he  replied. 

And  then,  I  said,  we  must  try  them  with  enchantments — that 
is  the  third  sort  of  test — and  see  what  will  be  their  behavior: 
like  those  who  take  colts  amid  noise  and  tumult  to  see  if  they  are 
of  a  timid  nature,  so  must  we  take  our  youth  amid  terrors  of 
some  kind,  and  again  pass  them  into  pleasures,  and  prove  them 
more  thoroughly  than  gold  is  proved  in  the  furnace,  that  we  may 
discover  whether  they  are  armed  against  all  enchantments,  and 
of  a  noble  bearing  always,  good  guardians  of  themselves  and  of  the 
music  which  they  have  learned,  and  retaining  under  all  circum- 
stances a  rhythmical  and  harmonious  nature,  such  as  will  be  most 
serviceable  to  the  individual  and  to  the  state.  And  he  who  at 
every  age,  as  boy  and  youth  and  in  mature  life,  has  come  out  of 
the  trial  victorious  and  pure,  shall  be  appointed  a  ruler  and 


PLATO  13 

guardian  of  the  state;  he  shall  be  honored  in  life  and  death,  and 
shall  receive  sepulture  and  other  memorials  of  honor,  the  greatest 
that  we  have  to  give.  But  him  who  fails,  we  must  reject.  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  this  is  the  sort  of  way  in  which  our  rulers 
and  guardians  should  be  chosen  and  appointed.  I  speak  generally 
and  not  with  any  pretension  to  exactness. 

And,  speaking  generally,  I  agree  with  you,  he  said. 

And  perhaps  the  word  " guardian"  in  the  fullest  sense  ought  to 
be  applied  to  this  higher  class  only  who  preserve  us  against  foreign 
enemies  and  maintain  peace  among  our  citizens  at  home,  that  the 
one  may  not  have  the  will,  or  the  others  the  power,  to  harm  us. 
The  young  men  whom  we  before  called  guardians  may  be  more 
properly  designated  auxiliaries  and  supporters  of  the  principles 
of  the  rulers. 

1  agree  with  you,  he  said. 

How  then  may  we  devise  one  of  those  needful  falsehoods  of 
which  we  lately  spoke — just  one  royal  lie  which  may  deceive  the 
rulers,  if  that  be  possible,  and  at  any  rate  the  rest  of  the  city? 

What  sort  of  lie?  he  said. 

Nothing  new,  I  replied ;  only  an  old  Phoenician  tale  of  what  has 
often  occurred  before  now  in  other  places  (as  the  poets  say,  and 
have  made  the  world  believe),  though  not  in  our  time,  and  I  do  not 
know  whether  such  an  event  could  ever  happen  again,  or  could 
now  even  be  made  probable,  if  it  did. 

How  your  words  seem  to  hesitate  on  your  lips ! 

You  will  not  wonder,  I  replied,  at  my  hesitation  when  you  have 
heard. 

Speak,  he  said,  and  fear  not. 

Well  then,  I  will  speak,  although  I  really  know  not  how  to  look 
you  in  the  face,  or  in  what  words  to  utter  the  audacious  fiction, 
which  I  propose  to  communicate  gradually,  first  to  the  rulers, 
then  to  the  soldiers,  and  lastly  to  the  people.  They  are  to  be  told 
that  their  youth  was  a  dream,  and  the  education  and  training 
which  they  received  from  us,  an  appearance  only;  in  reality  during 
all  that  time  they  were  being  formed  and  fed  in  the  womb  of  the 
earth,  where  they  themselves  and  their  arms  and  appurtenances 
were  manufactured;  when  they  were  completed,  the  earth,  their 
mother,  sent  them  up;  and  so  their  country  being  their  mother 
and  also  their  nurse,  they  are  bound  to  advise  for  her  good,  and 
to  defend  her  against  attacks,  and  her  citizens  they  are  to  regard 
as  children  of  the  earth  and  their  own  brothers. 

You  had  good  reason,  he  said,  to  be  ashamed  of  the  lie  which 
you  were  going  to  tell. 


14  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

True,  I  replied,  but  there  is  more  coming;  I  have  only  told 
you  half.  Citizens,  we  shall  say  to  them  in  our  tale,  you  are 
brothers,  yet  God  has  framed  you  differently.  Some  of  you  have 
the  power  of  command,  and  in  the  composition  of  these  he  has 
mingled  gold,  wherefore  also  they  have  the  greatest  honor;  others 
he  has  made  of  silver,  to  be  auxiliaries;  others  again  who  are  to 
be  husbandmen  and  craftsmen  he  has  composed  of  brass  and  iron; 
and  the  species  will  generally  be  preserved  in  the  children.  But  as 
all  are  of  the  same  original  stock,  a  golden  parent  will  sometimes 
have  a  silver  son,  or  a  silver  parent  a  golden  son.  And  God  pro- 
claims as  a  first  principle  to  the  rulers,  and  above  all  else,  that  there 
is  nothing  which  they  should  so  anxiously  guard,  or  of  which  they 
are  to  be  such  good  guardians,  as  of  the  purity  of  the  race.  They 
should  observe  what  elements  mingle  in  their  offspring;  for  if 
the  son  of  a  golden  or  silver  parent  has  an  admixture  of  brass  and 
iron,  then  nature  orders  a  transposition  of  ranks,  and  the  eye  of 
the  ruler  must  not  be  pitiful  towards  the  child  because  he  has  to 
descend  in  the  scale  and  become  a  husbandman  or  artisan,  just 
as  there  may  be  sons  of  artisans  who  having  an  admixture  of  gold 
or  silver  in  them  are  raised  to  honor,  and  become  guardians  or 
auxiliaries.  For  an  oracle  says  that  when  a  man  of  brass  or 
iron  guards  the  state,  it  will  be  destroyed.  Such  is  the  tale; 
is  there  any  possibility  of  making  our  citizens  believe  in  it? 

Not  in  the  present  generation,  he  replied;  there  is  no  way  of 
accomplishing  this;  but  their  sons  may  be  made  to  believe  in 
the  tale,  and  their  sons'  sons,  and  posterity  after  them. 

I  see  the  difficulty,  I  replied;  yet  the  fostering  of  such  a  belief 
will  make  them  care  more  for  the  city  and  for  one  another. 
Enough,  however,  of  the  fiction,  which  may  now  fly  abroad  upon 
the  wings  of  rumor,  while  we  arm  our  earth-born  heroes,  and  lead 
them  forth  under  the  command  of  their  rulers.  Let  them  look 
round  and  select  a  spot  whence  they  can  best  suppress  insurrection, 
if  any  prove  refractory  within,  and  also  defend  themselves  against 
enemies,  who  like  wolves  may  come  down  on  the  fold  from  with- 
out; there  let  them  encamp,  and  when  they  have  encamped,  let 
them  sacrifice  to  the  proper  Gods  and  prepare  their  dwellings. 

Just  so,  he  said. 

And  their  dwellings  must  be  such  as  will  shield  them  against 
the  cold  of  winter  and  the  heat  of  summer. 

I  suppose  that  you  mean  houses,  he  replied. 

Yes,  I  said;  but  they  must  be  the  houses  of  soldiers,  and  not 
of  shop-keepers. 

What  is  the  difference?  he  said. 


PLA  TO  15 

That  I  will  endeavor  to  explain,  I  replied.  To  keep  watch-dogs, 
who,  from  want  of  discipline  or  hunger,  or  some  evil  habit  or  other, 
would  turn  upon  the  sheep  and  worry  them,  and  behave  not  like 
dogs  but  wolves,  would  be  a  foul  and  monstrous  thing  in  a  shep- 
herd? 

Truly  monstrous,  he  said. 

And  therefore  every  care  must  be  taken  that  our  auxiliaries, 
being  stronger  than  our  citizens,  may  not  grow  to  be  too  much 
for  them  and  become  savage  tyrants  instead  of  friends  and  allies? 

Yes,  great  care  should  be  taken. 

And  would  not  a  really  good  education  furnish  the  best  safe- 
guard? 

But  they  are  well-educated  already,  he  replied. 

I  cannot  be  so  confident,  my  dear  Glaucon,  I  said;  I  am  much 
more  certain  that  they  ought  to  be,  and  that  true  education, 
whatever  that  may  be,  will  have  the  greatest  tendency  to  civilize 
and  humanize  them  in  their  relations  to  one  another,  and  to  those 
who  are  under  their  protection. 

Very  true,  he  replied. 

And  not  only  their  education,  but  their  habitations,  and  all 
that  belongs  to  them,  should  be  such  as  will  neither  impair  their 
virtue  as  guardians,  nor  tempt  them  to  prey  upon  the  other 
citizens.  Any  man  of  sense  must  acknowledge  that. 

He  must. 

Then  now  let  us  consider  what  will  be  their  way  of  life,  if  they 
are  to  realize  our  idea  of  them.  In  the  first  place,  none  of  them 
should  have  any  property  of  his  own  beyond  what  is  absolutely 
necessary ;  neither  should  they  have  a  private  house  or  store  closed 
against  any  one  who  has  a  mind  to  enter;  their  provisions 
should  be  only  such  as  are  required  by  trained  warriors,  who  are 
men  of  temperance  and  courage;  they  should  agree  to  receive 
from  the  citizens  a  fixed  rate  of  pay,  enough  to  meet  the  expenses 
of  the  year  and  no  more;  and  they  will  go  to  mess  and  live  together 
like  soldiers  in  a  camp.  Gold  and  silver  we  will  tell  them  that  they 
have  from  God;  the  diviner  metal  is  within  them,  and  they  have 
therefore  no  need  of  the  dross  which  is  current  among  men,  and 
ought  not  to  pollute  the  divine  by  any  such  earthly  admixture; 
for  that  commoner  metal  has  been  the  source  of  many  unholy 
deeds,  but  their  own  is  undefiled.  And  they  alone  of  all  the  citi- 
zens may  not  touch  or  handle  silver  or  gold,  or  be  under  the 
same  roof  with  them,  or  wear  them,  or  drink  from  them.  And  this 
will  be  their  salvation,  and  they  will  be  the  saviours  of  the  state. 
But  should  they  ever  acquire  homes  or  lands  or  moneys  of  their 


16  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

own,  they  will  become  housekeepers  and  husbandmen  instead  of 
guardians,  enemies  and  tyrants  instead  of  allies  of  the  other  citi- 
zens; hating  and  being  hated,  plotting  and  being  plotted  against, 
they  will  pass  their  whole  life  in  much  greater  terror  of  internal 
than  of  external  enemies,  and  the  hour  of  ruin,  both  to  themselves 
and  to  the  rest  of  the  state,  will  be  at  hand.  For  all  which 
reasons  may  we  not  say  that  thus  shall  our  state  be  ordered, 
and  that  these  shall  be  the  regulations  appointed  by  us  for  our 
guardians  concerning  their  houses  and  all  other  matters? 

Yes,  said  Glaucon. 

Here  Adeimantus  interposed  a  question:  How  would  you 
answer,  Socrates,  said  he,  if  a  person  were  to  say  that  you  are 
making  these  people  miserable,  and  that  they  are  the  cause  of 
their  own  unhappiness;  the  city  in  fact  belongs  to  them,  but  they 
are  none  the  better  for  it;  whereas  other  men  acquire  lands,  and 
build  large  and  handsome  houses,  and  have  everything  handsome 
about  them,  offering  sacrifices  to  the  gods  on  their  own  account, 
and  practising  hospitality;  moreover,  as  you  were  saying  just  now, 
they  have  gold  and  silver,  and  all  that  is  usual  among  the  favorites 
of  fortune;  but  our  poor  citizens  are  no  better  than  mercenaries 
who  are  quartered  in  the  city  and  are  always  mounting  guard? 

Yes,  I  said;  and  you  may  add  that  they  are  only  fed,  and  not 
paid  in  addition  to  their  food,  like  other  men;  and  therefore  they 
cannot,  if  they  would,  take  a  journey  of  pleasure;  they  have  no 
money  to  spend  on  a  mistress  or  any  other  luxurious  fancy,  which, 
as  the  world  goes,  is  thought  to  be  happiness;  and  many  other  accu- 
sations of  the  same  nature  might  be  added. 

But,  said  he,  let  us  suppose  all  this  to  be  included  in  the  charge. 

You  mean  to  ask,  I  said,  what  will  be  our  answer? 

Yes. 

If  we  proceed  along  the  old  path,  my  belief,  I  said,  is  that  we 
shall  find  the  answer.  And  our  answer  will  be  that,  even  as  they 
are,  our  guardians  may  very  likely  be  the  happiest  of  men;  but 
that  our  aim  in  founding  the  state  was  not  the  disproportionate 
happiness  of  any  one  class,  but  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  whole; 
we  thought  that  in  a  state  which  is  ordered  with  a  view  to  the 
good  of  the  whole  we  should  be  most  likely  to  find  justice,  and  in 
the  ill-ordered  state  injustice:  and,  having  found  them,  we  might 
then  decide  which  of  the  two  is  the  happier.  At  present,  I  take 
it,  we  are  fashioning  the  happy  state,  not  piecemeal,  or  with  a 
view  of  making  a  few  happy  citizens,  but  as  a  whole;  and  by-and-by 
we  will  proceed  to  view  the  opposite  kind  of  state.  Suppose  that 
we  were  painting  a  statue,  and  some  one  came  up  to  us  and  said, 


PLATO  17 

Why  do  you  not  put  the  most  beautiful  colors  on  the  most  beauti- 
ful parts  of  the  body — the  eyes  ought  to  be  purple,  but  you  have 
made  them  black — to  him  we  might  fairly  answer,  Sir,  you  would 
not  surely  have  us  beautify  the  eyes  to  such  a  degree  that  they 
are  no  longer  eyes;  consider  rather  whether,  by  giving  this  and  the 
other  features  their  due  proportion,  we  make  the  whole  beautiful. 
And  so  I  say  to  you,  do  not  compel  us  to  assign  to  the  guardians 
a  sort  of  happiness  which  will  make  them  anything  but  guardians ; 
for  we  too  can  clothe  our  husbandmen  in  royal  apparel,  and  set 
crowns  of  gold  on  their  heads,  and  bid  them  till  the  ground  as  much 
as  they  like,  and  no  more.  Our  potters  also  might  be  allowed  to 
repose  on  couches,  and  feast  by  the  fireside,  passing  round  the 
winecup,  while  their  wheel  is  conveniently  at  hand,  and  working 
at  pottery  only  as  much  as  they  like;  in  this  way  we  might  make 
every  class  happy — and  then,  as  you  imagine,  the  whole  state 
would  be  happy.  But  do  not  put  this  idea  into  our  heads;  for, 
if  we  listen  to  you,  the  husbandman  will  be  no  longer  a  husband- 
man, the  potter  will  cease  to  be  a  potter,  and  no  one  will  have  the 
character  of  any  distinct  class  in  the  state.  Now  this  is  not  of 
much  consequence  where  the  corruption  of  society,  and  pretension 
to  be  what  you  are  not,  is  confined  to  cobblers;  but  when  the 
guardians  of  the  laws  and  of  the  government  are  only  seeming 
and  not  real  guardians,  then  see  how  they  turn  the  state  upside 
down;  and  on  the  other  hand  they  alone  have  the  power  of  giving 
order  and  happiness  to  the  state.  We  mean  our  guardians  to  be 
true  saviours  and  not  the  destroyers  of  the  state,  whereas  our 
opponent  is  thinking  of  peasants  at  a  festival,  who  are  enjoying 
a  life  of  revelry,  not  of  citizens  who  are  doing  their  duty  to  the 
state.  But,  if  so,  we  mean  different  things,  and  he  is  speaking 
of  something  which  is  not  a  state.  And  therefore  we  must  con- 
sider whether  in  appointing  our  guardians  we  would  look  to  their 
greatest  happiness  individually,  or  whether  this  principle  of  happi- 
ness does  not  rather  reside  in  the  state  as  a  whole.  But  if  the 
latter  be  the  truth,  then  the  guardians  and  auxiliaries,  and  all 
others  equally  with  them,  must  be  compelled  or  induced  to  do  their 
own  work  in  the  best  way.  And  thus  the  whole  state  will  grow 
up  in  a  noble  order,  and  the  several  classes  will  receive  the  pro- 
portion of  happiness  which  nature  assigns  to  them. 


18  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

3.     The  Three  Classes  of  the  State  * 

But  where,  amid  all  this,  is  justice?  son  of  Ariston,  tell  me  where. 
Now  that  our  city  has  been  made  habitable,  light  a  candle  and 
search,  and  get  your  brother  and  Polemarchus  and  the  rest  of  our 
friends  to  help,  and  let  us  see  where  in  it  we  can  discover  justice 
and  where  injustice,  and  in  what  they  differ  from  one  another, 
and  which  of  them  the  man  who  would  be  happy  should  have  for 
his  portion,  whether  seen  or  unseen  by  gods  and  men. 

Nonsense,  said  Glaucon:  did  you  not  promise  to  search  your- 
self, saying  that  for  you  not  to  help  justice  in  her  need  would  be 
an  impiety? 

I  do  not  deny  that  I  said  so;  and  as  you  remind  me,  I  will  be  as 
good  as  my  word ;  but  you  must  join. 

We  will,  he  replied. 

Well,  then,  I  hope  to  make  the  discovery  in  this  way:  I  mean 
to  begin  with  the  assumption  that  our  state,  if  rightly  ordered, 
is  perfect. 

That  is  most  certain. 

And  being  perfect,  is  therefore  wise  and  valiant  and  temperate 
and  just. 

That  is  likewise  clear. 

And  whichever  of  these  qualities  we  find  in  the  state,  the  one 
which  is  not  found  will  be  the  residue? 

Very  good. 

If  there  were  four  things,  and  we  were  searching  for  one  of  them, 
wherever  it  might  be,  the  one  sought  for  might  be  known  to  us 
from  the  first,  and  there  would  be  no  further  trouble;  or  we  might 
know  the  other  three  first,  and  then  the  fourth  would  clearly  be 
the  one  left. 

Very  true,  he  said. 

And  is  not  a  similar  method  to  be  pursued  about  the  virtues, 
which  are  also  four  in  number? 

Clearly. 

First  among  the  virtues  found  in  the  state,  wisdom  comes  into 
view,  and  in  this  I  detect  a  certain  peculiarity. 

What  is  that? 

The  state  which  we  have  been  describing  is  said  to  be  wise  as 
being  good  in  counsel? 

Very  true. 

And  good  counsel  is  clearly  a  kind  of  knowledge,  for  not  by 
ignorance,  but  by  knowledge,  do  men  counsel  well? 

1 IV,  427-434.    Jowett,  pp.  116-125. 


PLATO  19 

Clearly. 

And  the  kinds  of  knowledge  in  a  state  are  many  and  diverse? 

Of  course. 

There  is  the  knowledge  of  the  carpenter;  but  is  that  the  sort  of 
knowledge  which  gives  a  city  the  title  of  wise  and  good  in  counsel? 

Certainly  not;  that  would  only  give  a  city  the  reputation  of  skill 
in  carpentering. 

Then  a  city  is  not  to  be  called  wise  because  possessing  a  knowl- 
edge which  counsels  for  the  best  about  wooden  implements? 

Certainly  not. 

Nor  by  reason  of  a  knowledge  which  advises  about  brazen 
pots,  he  said,  nor  as  possessing  any  other  similar  knowledge? 

Not  by  reason  of  any  of  them,  he  said. 

Nor  yet  by  reason  of  a  knowledge  which  cultivates  the  earth; 
that  would  give  the  city  the  name  of  agricultural? 

Yes. 

Well,  I  said,  and  is  there  any  knowledge  in  our  recently-founded 
state  among  any  of  the  citizens  which  advises,  not  about  any 
particular  thing  in  the  state,  but  about  the  whole,  and  considers 
how  a  state  can  best  deal  with  itself  and  with  other  states? 

There  certainly  is. 

And  what  is  this  knowledge,  and  among  whom  is  it  found? 
I  asked. 

It  is  the  knowledge  of  the  guardians,  he  replied,  and  is  found 
among  those  whom  we  were  just  now  describing  as  perfect  guard- 
ians. 

And  what  is  the  name  which  the  city  derives  from  the  possession 
of  this  sort  of  knowledge? 

The  name  of  good  in  counsel  and  truly  wise. 

And  will  there  be  in  our  city  more  of  these  true  guardians  or 
more  smiths? 

The  smiths,  he  replied,  will  be  far  more  numerous. 

Will  not  the  guardians  be  the  smallest  of  all  the  classes  who 
receive  a  name  from  the  profession  of  some  kind  of  knowledge? 

Much  the  smallest. 

And  so  by  reason  of  the  smallest  part  or  class,  and  of  the  knowl- 
edge which  resides  in  this  presiding  and  ruling  part  of  itself,  the 
whole  state,  being  thus  constituted  according  to  nature,  will  be 
wise;  and  this,  which  has  the  only  knowledge  worthy  to  be  called 
wisdom,  has  been  ordained  by  nature  to  be  of  all  classes  the  least. 

Most  true. 

Thus,  then,  I  said,  the  nature  and  place  in  the  state  of  one  of 
the  four  virtues  has  somehow  or  other  been  discovered. 


20  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

And,  in  my  humble  opinion,  very  satisfactorily  discovered,  he 
replied. 

Again,  I  said,  there  is  no  difficulty  in  seeing  the  nature  of 
courage,  and  in  what  part  that  quality  resides  which  gives  the 
name  of  courageous  to  the  state. 

How  do  you  mean? 

Why,  I  said,  every  one  who  calls  any  state  courageous  or 
cowardly,  will  be  thinking  of  the  part  which  fights  and  goes  out 
to  war  on  the  state's  behalf. 

No  one,  he  replied,  would  ever  think  of  any  other. 

The  rest  of  the  citizens  may  be  courageous  or  may  be  cowardly, 
but  their  courage  or  cowardice  will  not,  as  I  conceive,  have  the 
effect  of  making  the  city  either  the  one  or  the  other. 

Certainly  not. 

The  city  will  be  courageous  in  virtue  of  a  portion  of  herself 
which  preserves  under  all  circumstances  that  opinion  about  the 
nature  of  things  to  be  feared  and  not  to  be  feared  in  which  our 
legislator  educated  them;  and  this  is  what  you  term  courage. 

I  should  like  to  hear  what  you  are  saying  once  more,  for  I  do 
not  think  that  I  perfectly  understand  you. 

I  mean  that  courage  is  a  kind  of  salvation. 

Salvation  of  what? 

Of  the  opinion  respecting  things  to  be  feared,  what  they  are  and 
of  what  nature,  which  the  law  implants  through  education;  and 
I  mean  by  the  words  "under  all  circumstances"  to  intimate  that 
in  pleasure  or  in  pain,  or  under  the  influence  of  desire  or  fear,  a 
man  preserves,  and  does  not  lose  this  opinion.  Shall  I  give  you 
an  illustration? 

If  you  please. 

You  know,  I  said,  that  dyers,  when  they  want  to  dye  wool 
for  making  the  true  sea-purple,  begin  by  selecting  their  white 
color  first;  this  they  prepare  and  dress  with  much  care  and  pains, 
in  order  that  the  white  ground  may  take  the  purple  hue  in  full 
perfection.  The  dyeing  then  proceeds;  and  whatever  is  dyed  in 
this  manner  becomes  a  fast  color,  and  no  washing  either  with 
lyes  or  without  them  can  take  away  the  bloom.  But,  when  the 
ground  has  not  been  duly  prepared,  you  will  have  noticed  how 
poor  is  the  look  either  of  purple  or  of  any  other  color. 

Yes,  he  said;  I  know  that  they  have  a  washed-out  and  ridiculous 
appearance. 

Then  now,  I  said,  you  will  understand  what  our  object  was  in 
selecting  our  soldiers,  and  educating  them  in  music  and  gymnastic; 
we  were  contriving  influences  which  would  prepare  them  to  take 


PLATO  21 

the  dye  of  the  laws  in  perfection,  and  the  color  of  their  opinion 
about  dangers  and  of  every  other  opinion  was  to  be  indelibly 
fixed  by  their  nurture  and  training,  not  to  be  washed  away  by 
such  potent  lyes  as  pleasure — mightier  agent  far  in  washing  the 
soul  than  any  soda  or  lye;  or  by  sorrow,  fear,  and  desire,  the 
mightiest  of  all  other  solvents.  And  this  sort  of  universal 
saving  power  of  true  opinion  in  conformity  with  law  about  real 
and  false  dangers  I  call  and  maintain  to  be  courage,  unless  you 
disagree. 

But  I  agree,  he  replied;  for  I  suppose  that  you  mean  to  exclude 
mere  uninstructed  courage,  such  as  that  of  a  wild  beast  or  of  a 
slave — this,  in  your  opinion,  is  not  the  courage  which  the  law 
ordains,  and  ought  to  have  another  name. 

Most  certainly. 

Then  I  may  infer  courage  to  be  such  as  you  describe? 

Why,  yes,  said  I,  you  may,  and  if  you  add  the  words  "of  a 
citizen,"  you  will  not  be  far  wrong; — hereafter,  if  you  like,  we 
will  carry  the  examination  further,  but  at  present  we  are  seeking 
not  for  courage  but  justice;  and  for  the  purpose  of  our  inquiry  we 
have  said  enough. 

You  are  right,  he  replied. 

Two  virtues  remain  to  be  discovered  in  the  state — first  temper- 
ance, and  then  justice  which  is  the  end  of  our  search. 

Very  true. 

Now,  can  we  find  justice  without  troubling  ourselves  about 
temperance? 

I  do  not  know  how  that  can  be  accomplished,  he  said,  nor  do 
I  desire  that  justice  should  be  brought  to  light  and  temperance 
lost  sight  of;  and  therefore  I  wish  that  you  would  do  me  the  favor 
of  considering  temperance  first. 

Certainly,  I  replied,  I  should  not  be  justified  in  refusing  your 
request. 

Then  consider,  he  said. 

Yes,  I  replied;  I  will;  and  as  far  as  I  can  at  present  see,  the 
virtue  of  temperance  has  more  of  the  nature  of  harmony  and  sym- 
phony than  the  preceding. 

How  so?  he  asked. 

Temperance,  I  replied,  is  the  ordering  or  controlling  of  certain 
pleasures  and  desires;  this  is  curiously  enough  implied  in  the  say- 
ing of  "a  man  being  his  own  master;"  and  other  traces  of  the  same 
notion  may  be  found  in  language. 

No  doubt,  he  said. 

There  is  something  ridiculous  in  the  expression  "master  of  him- 


22  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

self;"  for  the  master  is  also  the  servant  and  the  servant  the  master; 
and  in  all  these  modes  of  speaking  the  same  person  is  denoted. 

Certainly. 

The  meaning  is,  I  believe,  that  in  the  human  soul  there  is  a  better 
and  also  a  worse  principle;  and  when  the  better  has  the  worse 
under  control,  then  a  man  is  said  to  be  master  of  himself;  and  this 
is  a  term  of  praise :  but  when,  owing  to  evil  education  or  association, 
the  better  principle,  which  is  also  the  smaller,  is  overwhelmed  by 
the  greater  mass  of  the  worse — in  this  case  he  is  blamed  and  is  called 
the  slave  of  self  and  unprincipled. 

Yes,  there  is  reason  in  that. 

And  now,  I  said,  look  at  our  newly-created  state,  and  there  you 
will  find  one  of  these  two  conditions  realized;  for  the  state,  as  you 
will  acknowledge,  may  be  justly  called  master  of  itself,  if  the  words 
"temperance"  and  "self-mastery"  truly  express  the  rule  of  the 
better  part  over  the  worse. 

Yes,  he  said,  I  see  that  what  you  say  is  true. 

Let  me  further  note  that  the  manifold  and  complex  pleasures 
and  desires  and  pains  are  generally  found  in  children  and  women 
and  servants,  and  in  the  freemen  so  called  who  are  of  the  lowest 
and  more  numerous  class. 

Certainly,  he  said. 

Whereas  the  simple  and  moderate  desires  which  follow  reason, 
and  are  under  the  guidance  of  mind  and  true  opinion,  are  to  be 
found  only  in  a  few,  and  those  the  best  born  and  best  educated. 

Very  true. 

These  two,  as  you  may  perceive,  have  a  place  in  our  state ;  and 
the  meaner  desires  of  the  many  are  held  down  by  the  virtuous 
desires  and  wisdom  of  the  few. 

That  I  perceive,  he  said. 

Then  if  there  be  any  city  which  may  be  described  as  master 
of  its  own  pleasures  and  desires,  and  master  of  itself,  ours  may 
claim  such  a  designation? 

Certainly,  he  replied. 

It  may  also  be  called  temperate,  and  for  the  same  reasons? 

Yes. 

And  if  there  be  any  state  in  which  rulers  and  subjects  will  be 
agreed  as  to  the  question  who  are  to  rule,  that  again  will  be  our 
state? 

Undoubtedly. 

And  the  citizens  being  thus  agreed  among  themselves,  in  which 
class  will  temperance  be  found — in  the  rulers  or  in  the  subjects? 

In  both,  as  I  should  imagine,  he  replied. 


PLATO  23 

Do  you  observe  that  we  were  not  far  wrong  in  our  guess  that 
temperance  was  a  sort  of  harmony? 

Why  so? 

Why,  because  temperance  is  unlike  courage  and  wisdom,  each 
of  which  resides  in  a  part  only,  the  one  making  the  state  wise  and 
the  other  valiant;  not  so  temperance,  which  extends  to  the  whole, 
and  runs  through  all  the  notes  of  the  scale,  and  produces  a  har- 
mony of  the  weaker  and  the  stronger  and  the  middle  class,  whether 
you  suppose  them  to  be  stronger  or  weaker  in  wisdom  or  power 
or  numbers  or  wealth,  or  anything  else.  Most  truly  then  may  we 
deem  temperance  to  be  the  agreement  of  the  naturally  superior 
and  jnferior,  as  to  the  right  to  rule  of  either,  both  in  states  and 
individuals. 

I  entirely  agree  with  you. 

And  so,  I  said,  we  may  consider  three  out  of  the  four  virtues  to 
have  been  discovered  in  our  state.  The  last  of  those  qualities 
which  make  a  state  virtuous  must  be  justice,  if  we  only  knew  what 
that  was. 

The  inference  is  obvious. 

The  time  then  has  arrived,  Glaucon,  when,  like  huntsmen,  we 
should  surround  the  cover,  and  look  sharp  that  justice  does  not 
steal  away,  and  pass  out  of  sight  and  escape  us ;  for  beyond  a  doubt 
she  is  somewhere  in  this  country:  watch  therefore  and  strive  to 
catch  a  sight  of  her,  and  if  you  see  her  first,  let  me  know. 

Would  that  I  could!  but  you  should  regard  me  rather  as  a 
follower  who  has  just  eyes  enough  to  see  what  you  show  him — 
that  is  about  as  much  as  I  am  good  for. 

Offer  up  a  prayer  with  me  and  follow. 

I  will,  but  you  must  show  me  the  way. 

Here  is  no  path,  I  said,  and  the  wood  is  dark  and  perplexing; 
still  we  must  push  on. 

Let  us  push  on. 

Here  I  saw  something:  Halloo!  I  said,  I  begin  to  perceive 
a  track,  and  I  believe  that  the  quarry  will  not  escape. 

Good  news,  he  said. 

Truly,  I  said,  we  are  stupid  fellows. 

Why  so? 

Why,  my  good  sir,  at  the  beginning  of  our  inquiry,  ages  ago, 
there  was  justice  tumbling  out  at  our  feet,  and  we  never  saw  her; 
nothing  could  be  more  ridiculous.  Like  people  who  go  about 
looking  for  what  they  have  in  their  hands — that  was  the  way  with 
us — we  looked  not  at  what  we  were  seeking,  but  at  what  was  far 
off  in  the  distance;  and  therefore,  I  suppose,  we  missed  her. 


24  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

What  do  you  mean? 

I  mean  to  say  that  in  reality  for  a  long  time  past  we  have  been 
talking  of  justice,  and  have  failed  to  recognize  her. 

I  grow  impatient  at  the  length  of  your  exordium. 

Well  then,  tell  me,  I  said,  whether  I  am  right  or  not:  You 
remember  the  original  principle  which  we  were  always  laying 
down  at  the  foundation  of  the  state,  that  one  man  should  practise 
one  thing  only,  the  thing  to  which  his  nature  was  best  adapted : — 
now  justice  is  this  principle  or  a  part  of  it. 

Yes,  we  often  said  that  one  man  should  do  one  thing  only. 

Further,  we  affirmed  that  justice  was  doing  one's  own  business, 
and  not  being  a  busybody;  we  said  so  again  and  again,  and  many 
others  have  said  the  same  to  us. 

Yes,  we  said  so. 

Then  to  do  one's  own  business  in  a  certain  way  may  be  assumed 
to  be  justice.  Can  you  tell  me  whence  I  derive  this  inference? 

I  cannot,  but  I  should  like  to  be  told. 

Because  I  think  that  this  is  the  only  virtue  which  remains  in  the 
state  when  the  other  virtues  of  temperance  and  courage  and  wis- 
dom are  abstracted;  and,  that  this  is  the  ultimate  cause  and  condi- 
tion of  the  existence  of  all  of  them,  and  while  remaining  in  them  is 
also  their  preservative;  aa4-we'were  saying  that  if  the  three  were 
discovered  by  us,  justice  would  be  the  fourth  or  remaining  one. 

That  follows  of  necessity. 

If  we  are  asked  to  determine  which  of  these  four  qualities  by  its 
presence  contributes  most  to  the  excellence  of  the  state,  whether 
the  agreement  of  rulers  and  subjects,  or  the  preservation  in  the 
soldiers  of  the  opinion  which  the  law  ordains  about  the  true  nature 
of  dangers,  or  wisdom  and  watchfulness  in  the  rulers,  or  whether 
this  other  which  I  am  mentioning,  and  which  is  found  in  children 
and  women,  slave  and  freeman,  artisan,  ruler,  subject, — the  quality 
I  mean,  of  every  one  doing  his  own  work,  and  not  being  a  busy- 
body, would  claim  the  palm — the  question  is  not  so  easily  answered. 

Certainly,  he  replied,  there  would  be  a  difficulty  in  saying  which. 

Then  the  power  of  each  individual  in  the  state  to  do  his  own 
work  appears  to  compete  with  the  other  political  virtues,  wisdom, 
temperance,  courage. 

Yes,  he  said. 

And  the  virtue  which  enters  into  this  competition  is  justice? 

Exactly. 

Let  us  look  at  the  question  from  another  point  of  view:  Are 
not  the  rulers  in  a  state  those  to  whom  you  would  intrust  the 
office  of  determining  suits  at  law? 


PLATO  25 

Certainly. 

And  are  suits  decided  on  any  other  ground  but  that  a  man  may 
neither  take  what  is  another's,  nor  be  deprived  of  what  is  his  own? 

Yes;  that  is  their  principle. 

Which  is  a  just  principle? 

Yes. 

Then  on  this  view  also  justice  will  be  admitted  to  be  the  having 
and  doing  what  is  a  man's  own,  and  belongs  to  him? 

Very  true. 

Think,  now,  and  say  whether  you  agree  with  me  or  not.  Sup- 
pose a  carpenter  to  be  doing  the  business  of  a  cobbler,  or  a  cobbler 
of  a  carpenter;  and  suppose  them  to  exchange  their  implements 
or  their  duties,  or  the  same  person  to  be  doing  the  work  of  both, 
or  whatever  be  the  change ;  do  you  think  that  any  great  harm  would 
result  to  the  state? 

Not  much. 

But  when  the  cobbler  or  any  other  man  whom  nature  designed 
to  be  a  trader,  having  his  heart  lifted  up  by  wealth  or  strength  or 
the  number  of  his  followers,  or  any  like  advantage,  attempts  to 
force  his  way  into  the  class  of  warriors,  or  a  warrior  into  that  of 
legislators  and  guardians,  for  which  he  is  unfitted,  and  either  to 
take  the  implements  or  the  duties  of  the  other;  or  when  one  man  is 
trader,  legislator,  and  warrior  all  in  one,  then  I  think  you  will 
agree  with  me  in  saying  that  this  interchange  and  this  meddling 
of  one  with  another  is  the  ruin  of  the  state. 

Most  true. 

Seeing  then,  I  said,  that  there  are  three  distinct  classes,  any 
meddling  of  one  with  another,  or  the  change  of  one  into  another, 
is  the  greatest  harm  to  the  state,  and  may  be  most  justly  termed 
evil-doing? 

Precisely. 

And  the  greatest  degree  of  evil-doing  to  one's  own  city  would 
be  termed  by  you  injustice? 

Certainly. 

This  then  is  injustice;  and  on  the  other  hand  when  the  trader, 
the  auxiliary,  and  the  guardian  each  do  their  own  business,  that  is 
justice,  and  will  make  the  city  just. 


26  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 


4.     Communism 1 

I  do  not  think,  I  said,  that  there  can  be  any  dispute  about  the 
very  great  utility  of  having  wives  and  children  in  common;  the 
possibility  is  quite  another  matter,  and  will  be  very  much  dis- 
puted. 

I  think  that  a  good  many  doubts  may  be  raised  about  both. 

You  imply  that  the  two  questions  must  be  combined,  I  replied. 
Now  I  meant  that  you  should  admit  the  utility;  and  in  this  way, 
as  I  thought,  I  should  escape  from  one  of  them,  and  then  there 
would  remain  only  the  possibility. 

But  that  little  attempt  is  detected,  and  therefore  you  will  please 
to  give  a  defence  of  both. 

Well,  I  said,  I  submit  to  my  fate.  Yet  grant  me  a  little  favor: 
let  me  feast  my  mind  with  the  dream  as  day  dreamers  are  in  the 
habit  of  feasting  themselves  when  they  are  walking  alone;  for 
before  they  have  discovered  any  means  of  effecting  their  wishes — 
that  is  a  matter  which  never  troubles  them — they  would  rather 
not  tire  themselves  by  thinking  about  possibilities;  but  assuming 
that  what  they  desire  is  already  granted  to  them,  they  proceed  with 
their  plan,  and  delight  in  detailing  what  they  mean  to  do  when  their 
wish  has  come  true — that  is  a  way  which  they  have  of  not  doing 
much  good  to  a  capacity  which  was  never  good  for  much.  Now  I 
myself  am  beginning  to  lose  heart,  and  I  should  like,  with  your 
permission,  to  pass  over  the  question  of  possibility  at  present. 
Assuming  therefore  the  possibility  of  the  proposal,  I  shall  now  pro- 
ceed to  inquire  how  the  rulers  will  carry  out  these  arrangements, 
and  I  shall  demonstrate  that  our  plan,  if  executed,  will  be  of  the 
greatest  benefit  to  the  state  and  to  the  guardians.  First  of  all, 
then,  if  you  have  no  objection,  I  will  endeavor  with  your  help 
to  consider  the  advantages  of  the  measure;  and  hereafter  the  ques- 
tion of  possibility. 

I  have  no  objections;  proceed. 

First,  I  think  that  if  our  rulers  and  their  auxiliaries  are  to  be 
worthy  of  the  name  which  they  bear,  there  must  be  willingness 
to  obey  in  the  one  and  the  power  of  command  in  the  other;  the 
guardians  must  themselves  obey  the  laws,  and  they  must  also 
imitate  the  spirit  of  them  in  any  details  which  are  intrusted  to 
their  care. 

That  is  right,  he  said. 

1  V,  457-465.    Jowett,  pp.  150-160. 


PLATO  27 

You,  I  said,  who  are  their  legislator,  having  selected  the  men, 
will  now  select  the  women  and  give  them  to  them; — they  must  be 
as  far  as  possible  of  like  natures  with  them;  and  they  must  live 
in  common  houses  and  meet  at  common  meals.  None  of  them  will 
have  anything  specially  his  or  her  own ;  they  will  be  together,  and 
will  be  brought  up  together,  and  will  associate  at  gymnastic 
exercises.  And  so  they  will  be  drawn  by  a  necessity  of  their 
natures  to  have  intercourse  with  each  other — necessity  is  not  too 
strong  a  word,  I  think? 

Yes,  he  said;  necessity,  not  geometrical,  but  another  sort  of 
necessity  which  lovers  know,  and  which  is  far  more  convincing 
and  constraining  to  the  mass  of  mankind. 

True,  I  said;  and  this,  Glaucon,  like  all  the  rest,  must  proceed 
after  an  orderly  fashion;  in  a  city  of  the  blessed,  licentiousness  is 
an  unholy  thing  which  the  rulers  will  forbid. 

Yes,  he  said,  and  it  ought  not  to  be  permitted. 

Then  clearly  the  next  thing  will  be  to  make  matrimony  sacred 
in  the  highest  degree,  and  what  is  most  beneficial  will  be  deemed 
sacred? 

Exactly. 

And  how  can  marriages  be  made  most  beneficial? — that  is  a 
question  which  I  put  to  you,  because  I  see  in  your  house  dogs  for 
hunting,  and  of  the  nobler  sort  of  birds  not  a  few.  Now,  I  be- 
seech you,  do  tell  me,  have  you  ever  attended  to  their  pairing  and 
breeding? 

In  what  particulars? 

Why,  in  the  first  place,  although  they  are  all  of  a  good  sort,  are 
not  some  better  than  others? 

True. 

And  do  you  breed  from  them  all  indifferently,  or  do  you  take 
care  to  breed  from  the  best  only? 

From  the  best. 

And  do  you  take  the  oldest  or  the  youngest,  or  only  those  of 
ripe  age? 

I  choose  only  those  of  ripe  age. 

And  if  care  was  not  taken  in  the  breeding,  your  dogs  and  birds 
would  greatly  deteriorate? 

Certainly. 

And  the  same  of  horses  and  of  animals  in  general? 

Undoubtedly. 

Good  heavens!  my  dear  friend,  I  said,  what  consummate  skill 
will  our  rulers  need  if  the  same  principle  holds  of  the  human 
species ! 


28  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Certainly,  the  same  principle  holds;  but  why  does  this  involve 
any  particular  skill? 

Because,  I  said,  our  rulers  will  often  have  to  practise  upon  the 
body  corporate  with  medicines.  Now  you  know  that  when 
patients  do  not  require  medicines,  but  have  only  to  be  put  under 
a  regimen,  the  inferior  sort  of  practitioner  is  deemed  to  be  good 
enough;  but  when  medicine  has  to  be  given,  then  the  doctor  should 
be  more  of  a  man. 

That  is  quite  true,  he  said;  but  to  what  are  you  alluding? 

I  mean,  I  replied,  that  our  rulers  will  find  a  considerable  dose 
of  falsehood  and  deceit  necessary  for  the  good  of  their  subjects: 
we  were  saying  that  the  use  of  all  these  things  regarded  as  medicines 
might  be  of  advantage. 

And  we  were  very  right. 

And  this  lawful  use  of  them  seems  likely  to  be  often  needed  in 
the  regulations  of  marriages  and  births. 

How  so? 

Why,  I  said,  the  principle  has  been  already  laid  down  that  the 
best  of  either  sex  should  be  united  with  the  best  as  often,  and  the 
inferior  with  the  inferior  as  seldom,  as  possible;  and  that  they 
should  rear  the  offspring  of  the  one  sort  of  union,  but  not  of 
the  other,  if  the  flock  is  to  be  maintained  in  first-rate  condition. 
Now  these  goings  on  must  be  a  secret  which  the  rulers  only  know, 
or  there  will  be  a  further  danger  of  our  herd,  as  the  guardians  may 
be  termed,  breaking  out  into  rebellion. 

Very  true. 

Had  we  not  better  appoint  certain  festivals  at  which  we  will 
bring  together  the  brides  and  bridegrooms,  and  sacrifices  will  be 
offered  and  suitable  hymeneal  songs  composed  by  our  poets:  the 
number  of  weddings  is  a  matter  which  must  be  left  to  the  discretion 
of  the  rulers,  whose  aim  will  be  to  preserve  the  average  of  popula- 
tion? There  are  many  other  things  which  they  will  have  to  con- 
sider, such  as  the  effects  of  wars  and  diseases  and  any  similar 
agencies,  in  order  as  far  as  this  is  possible  to  prevent  the  state  from 
becoming  either  too  large  or  too  small. 

Certainly,  he  replied. 

We  shall  have  to  invent  some  ingenious  kind  of  lots  which  the 
less  worthy  may  draw  on  each  occasion  of  our  bringing  them  to- 
gether, and  then  they  will  accuse  their  own  ill-luck  and  not  the 
rulers. 

To  be  sure,  he  said. 

And  I  think  that  our  braver  and  better  youth,  besides  their 
other  honors  and  rewards,  might  have  greater  facilities  of  inter- 


PLATO  29 

course  with  women  given  them;  their  bravery  will  be  a  reason, 
and  such  fathers  ought  to  have  as  many  sons  as  possible. 

True. 

And  the  proper  officers,  whether  male  or  female  or  both,  for 
offices  are  to  be  held  by  women  as  well  as  by  men — 

Yes— 

The  proper  officers  will  take  the  offspring  of  the  good  parents 
to  the  pen  or  fold,  and  there  they  will  deposit  them  with  certain 
nurses  who  dwell  in  a  separate  quarter;  but  the  offspring  of  the 
inferior,  or  of  the  better  when  they  chance  to  be  deformed,  will 
be  put  away  in  some  mysterious,  unknown  place,  as  they  should  be. 

Yes,  he  said,  that  must  be  done  if  the  breed  of  the  guardians  is 
to  be  kept  pure. 

They  will  provide  for  their  nurture,  and  will  bring  the  mothers 
to  the  fold  when  they  are  full  of  milk,  taking  the  greatest  possible 
care  that  no  mother  recognizes  her  own  child;  and  other  wet- 
nurses  may  be  engaged  if  more  are  required.  Care  will  also  be 
taken  that  the  process  of  suckling  shall  not  be  protracted  too  long; 
and  the  mothers  will  have  no  getting  up  at  night  or  other  trouble, 
but  will  hand  over  all  this  sort  of  thing  to  the  nurses  and  attend- 
ants. 

You  suppose  the  wives  of  our  guardians  to  have  a  fine  easy  time 
of  it  when  they  are  having  children. 

Why,  said  I,  and  so"  they  ought.  Let  us,  however,  proceed  with 
our  scheme.  We  were  saying  that  the  parents  should  be  in  the 
prime  of  life? 

Very  true. 

And  what  is  the  prime  of  life?  May  it  not  be  denned  as  a  period 
of  about  twenty  years  in  a  woman's  life,  and  thirty  in  a  man's? 

Which  years  do  you  mean  to  include? 

A  woman,  I  said,  at  twenty  years  of  age  may  begin  to  bear 
children  to  the  state,  and  continue  to  bear  them  until  forty; 
a  man  may  begin  at  five-and-twenty,  when  he  has  passed  the 
point  at  which  the  pulse  of  life  beats  quickest,  and  continue  to 
beget  children  until  he  be  fifty-five. 

Certainly,  he  said,  both  in  men  and  women  those  years  are  the 
prime  of  physical  as  well  as  of  intellectual  vigor. 

Any  one  above  or  below  the  prescribed  ages  who  takes  part 
in  the  public  hymeneals  shall  be  said  to  have  done  an  unholy  and 
unrighteous  thing;  the  child  of  which  he  is  the  father,  if  it  steals 
into  life,  will  have  been  conceived  under  auspices  very  unlike  the 
sacrifices  and  prayers,  which  at  each  hymeneal  priestesses  and 
priests  and  the  whole  city  will  offer,  that  the  new  generation  may 


30  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

be  better  and  more  useful  than  their  good  and  useful  parents, 
whereas  his  child  will  be  the  offspring  of  darkness  and  strange  lust. 

Very  true,  he  replied. 

And  the  same  law  will  apply  to  any  one  of  those  within  the  pre- 
scribed age  who  forms  a  connection  with  any  woman  in  the  prime 
of  life  without  the  sanction  of  the  rulers;  for  we  shall  say  that  he  is 
raising  up  a  bastard  to  the  state,  uncertified  and  unconsecrated. 

Very  true,  he  replied. 

This  applies,  however,  only  to  those  who  are  within  the  speci- 
fied age:  after  that  we  allow  them  to  range  at  will,  except  that 
a  man  may  not  marry  his  daughter  or  his  daughter's  daughter, 
or  his  mother  or  his  mother's  mother;  and  women,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  prohibited  from  marrying  their  sons  or  fathers,  or  son's 
son  or  father's  father,  and  so  on  in  either  direction.  And  we  grant 
all  this,  accompanying  the  permission  with  strict  orders  to  prevent 
any  embryo  which  may  come  into  being  from  seeing  the  light ;  and 
if  any  force  a  way  to  the  birth,  the  parents  must  understand  that 
the  offspring  of  such  a  union  cannot  be  maintained,  and  arrange 
accordingly. 

That  also,  he  said,  is  a  reasonable  proposition.  But  how  will 
they  know  who  are  fathers  and  daughters,  and  so  on? 

They  will  never  know.  The  way  will  be  this : — dating  from  the 
day  of  the  hymeneal,  the  bridegroom  who  was  then  married 
will  call  all  the  male  children  who  are  born  in  the  seventh  and  the 
tenth  month  afterwards  his  sons,  and  the  female  children  his 
daughters,  and  they  will  call  him  father,  and  he  will  call  their 
children  his  grandchildren,  and  they  will  call  the  elder  generation 
grandfathers  and  grandmothers.  All  who  were  begotten  at  the 
time  when  their  fathers  and  mothers  came  together  will  be  called 
their  brothers  and  sisters,  and  these,  as  I  was  saying,  will  be  for- 
bidden to  inter-marry.  This,  however,  is  not  to  be  understood 
as  an  absolute  prohibition  of  the  marriage  of  brothers  and  sisters ; 
if  the  lot  favors  them,  and  they  receive  the  sanction  of  the  Pythian 
oracle,  the  law  will  allow  them. 

Quite  right,  he  replied. 

Such  is  the  scheme,  Glaucon,  according  to  which  the  guardians 
of  our  state  are  to  have  their  wives  and  families  in  common.  And 
now  you  would  have  the  argument  show  that  this  community  is 
consistent  with  the  rest  of  our  polity,  and  also  that  nothing  can 
be  better — would  you  not? 

Yes,  certainly. 

Shall  we  try  to  find  a  common  basis  by  asking  of  ourselves  what 
ought  to  be  the  chief  aim  of  the  legislator  in  making  laws  and  in 


PLATO  31 

the  organization  of  a  state, — what  is  the  greatest  good,  and  what 
is  the  greatest  evil,  and  then  consider  whether  our  previous  descrip- 
tion has  the  stamp  of  the  good  or  of  the  evil? 

By  all  means. 

Can  there  be  any  greater  evil  than  discord  and  distraction 
and  plurality  where  unity  ought  to  reign  ?  or  any  greater  good 
than  the  bond  of  unit^T""" 

There  cannot. 

And  there  is  unity  where  there  is  community  of  pleasures  and 
pains — where  all  the  citizens  are  glad  or  grieved  on  the  same 
occasions  of  joy  and  sorrow? 

No  doubt. 

Yes;  and  where  there  is  no  common  but  only  private  feeling 
a  state  is  disorganized — when  you  have  one-half  of  the  world 
triumphing  and  the  other  plunged  in  grief  at  the  same  events 
happening  to  the  city  or  the  citizens? 

Certainly. 

Such  differences  commonly  originate  in  a  disagreement  about 
the  use  of  the  terms  "mine"  and  "not  mine,"  "his"  and  "not  his." 

Exactly  so. 

And  is  not  that  the  best-ordered  state  in  which  the  greatest 
number  of  persons  apply  the  terms  "mine"  and  "not  mine"  in  the 
same  way  to  the  same  thing? 

Quite  true. 

Or  that  again  which  most  nearly  approaches  to  the  condition 
of  the  individual — as  in  the  body,  when  but  a  finger  of  one  of  us 
is  hurt,  the  whole  frame,  drawn  towards  the  soul  as  a  centre  and 
forming  one  kingdom  under  the  ruling  power  therein,  feels  the  hurt 
and  sympathizes  all  together  with  the  part  affected,  and  we 
say  that  the  man  has  a  pain  in  his  finger;  and  the  same  expres- 
sion is  used  about  any  other  part  of  the  body,  which  has  a 
sensation  of  pain  at  suffering  or  of  pleasure  at  the  alleviation  of 
suffering. 

Very  true,  he  replied;  and  I  agree  with  you  that  in  the  best- 
ordered  state  there  is  the  nearest  approach  to  this  common  feeling 
which  you  describe. 

Then  when  any  one  of  the  citizens  experiences  any  good  or 
evil,  the  whole  state  will  make  his  case  their  own,  and  will  either 
rejoice  or  sorrow  with  him? 

Yes,  he  said,  that  is  what  will  happen  in  a  well-ordered  state. 

It  will  now  be  time,  I  said,  for  us  to  return  to  our  state  and  see 
whether  this  or  some  other  form  is  most  in  accordance  with  these 
fundamental  principles. 


32  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Very  good. 

Our  state  like  every  other  has  rulers  and  subjects? 

True. 

All  of  whom  will  call  one  another  citizens? 

Of  course. 

But  is  there  not  another  name  which  people  give  to  their 
rulers  in  other  states? 

Generally  they  call  them  masters,  but  in  democratic  states  they 
simply  call  them  rulers. 

And  in  our  state  what  other  name  besides  that  of  citizens  do 
the  people  give  the  rulers? 

They  are  called  saviours  and  helpers,  he  replied. 

And  what  do  the  rulers  call  the  people? 

Their  maintainers  and  foster-fathers. 

And  what  do  they  call  them  in  other  states? 

Slaves. 

And  what  do  the  rulers  call  one  another  in  other  states? 

Fellow-rulers. 

And  what  in  ours? 

Fellow-guardians. 

Did  you  ever  know  an  example  in  any  other  state  of  a  ruler 
who  would  speak  of  one  of  his  colleagues  as  his  friend  and  of  another 
as  not  being  his  friend? 

Yes,  very  often. 

And  the  friend  he  regards  and  describes  as  one  in  whom  he  has 
an  interest,  and  the  other  as  a  stranger  in  whom  he  has  no  interest? 

Exactly. 

But  would  any  of  your  guardians  think  or  speak  of  any  other 
guardian  as  a  stranger? 

Certainly  he  would  not;  for  every  one  whom  they  meet  will  be 
regarded  by  them  either  as  a  brother  or  sister,  or  father  or  mother, 
or  son  or  daughter,  or  as  the  child  or  parent  of  those  who  are  thus 
connected  with  him. 

Capital,  I  said;  but  let  me  ask  you  once  more:  Shall  they 
be  a  family  in  name  only;  or  shall  they  in  all  their  actions 
be  true  to  the  name?  For  example,  in  the  use  of  the  word 
" father,"  would  the  care  of  a  father  be  implied  and  the 
filial  reverence  and  duty  and  obedience  to  him  which  the 
law  commands;  and  is  the  violator  of  these  duties  to  be  re- 
garded as  an  impious  and  unrighteous  person  who  is  not  likely 
to  receive  much  good  either  at  the  hands  of  God  or  of  man? 
Are  these  to  be  or  not  to  be  the  strains  which  the  children  will 
hear  repeated  in  their  ears  by  all  the  citizens  about  those  who 


PLATO  33 

are  intimated  to  them  to  be  their  parents  and  the  rest  of  their 
kinsfolk? 

These,  he  said,  and  none  other;  for  what  can  be  more  ridiculous 
than  for  them  to  utter  the  names  of  family  ties  with  the  lips  only 
and  not  to  act  in  the  spirit  of  them? 

Then  in  our  city  the  language  of  harmony  and  concord  will  be 
more  often  heard  than  in  any  other.  As  I  was  describing  before, 
when  any  one  is  well  or  ill,  the  universal  word  will  be  "with  me  it 
is  well"  or  "it  is  ill." 

Most  true. 

And  agreeably  to  this  mode  of  thinking  and  speaking,  were  we 
not  saying  that  they  will  have  their  pleasures  and  pains  in  com- 
mon? 

Yes,  and  so  they  will. 

And  they  will  have  a  common  interest  in  the  same  thing  which 
they  will  alike  call  "my  own,"  and  having  this  common  interest 
they  will  have  a  common  feeling  of  pleasure  and  pain? 

Yes,  far  more  so  than  in  other  states. 

And  the  reason  of  this,  over  and  above  the  general  constitution 
of  the  state,  will  be  that  the  guardians  will  have  a  community 
of  women  and  children? 

That  will  be  the  chief  reason. 

And  this  unity  of  feeling  we  admitted  to  be  the  greatest  good, 
as  was  implied  in  our  own  comparison  of  a  well-ordered  state  to 
the  relation  of  the  body  and  the  members,  when  affected  by 
pleasure  or  pain? 

That  we  acknowledged,  and  very  rightly. 

Then  the  community  of  wives  and  children  among  our  citizens 
is  clearly  the  source  of  the  greatest  good  to  the  state? 

Certainly. 

And  this  agrees  with  the  other  principle  which  we  were  affirm- 
ing,— that  the  guardians  were  not  to  have  houses  or  lands  or  any 
other  property;  their  pay  was  to  be  their  food,  which  they  were  to 
receive  from  the  other  citizens,  and  they  were  to  have  no  private 
expenses;  for  we  intended  them  to  preserve  their  true  character 
of  guardians. 

Right,  he  replied. 

Both  the  community  of  property  and  the  community  of  families, 
as  I  am  saying,  tend  to  make  them  more  truly  guardians;  they  will 
not  tear  the  city  in  pieces  by  differing  about  "mine"  and  "not 
mine" ;  each  man  dragging  any  acquisition  which  he  has  made  into  a 
separate  house  of  his  own,  where  he  has  a  separate  wife  and  children 
and  private  pleasures  and  pains;  but  all  will  be  affected  as  far  as 


34  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

may  be  by  the  same  pleasures  and  pains  because  they  are  all  of 
one  opinion  about  what  is  near  and  dear  to  them,  and  therefore 
they  all  tend  towards  a  common  end. 

Certainly,  he  replied. 

And  as  they  have  nothing  but  their  persons  which  they  can  call 
their  own,  suits  and  complaints  will  have  no  existence  among  them; 
they  will  be  delivered  from  all  those  quarrels  of  which  money  or 
children  or  relations  are  the  occasion. 

Of  course  they  will. 

Neither  will  trials  for  assault  or  insult  ever  be  likely  to  occur 
among  them.  For  that  equals  should  defend  themselves  against 
equals  we  shall  maintain  to  be  honorable  and  right ;  we  shall  make 
the  protection  of  the  person  a  matter  of  necessity. 

That  is  good,  he  said. 

Yes;  and  there  is  a  further  good  in  the  law;  viz.  that  if  a  man  has 
a  quarrel  with  another  he  will  satisfy  his  resentment  then  and  there, 
and  not  proceed  to  more  dangerous  lengths. 

Certainly. 

To  the  elder  shall  be  assigned  the  duty  of  ruling  and  chastising 
the  younger. 

Clearly. 

Nor  can  there  be  a  doubt  that  the  younger  will  not  strike  or 
do  any  other  violence  to  an  elder,  unless  the  magistrates 
command  him;  nor  will  he  slight  him  in  any  way.  For  there 
are  two  guardians,  shame  and  fear,  mighty  to  prevent  him: 
shame,  which  makes  men  refrain  from  laying  hands  on  those 
who  are  to  them  in  the  relation  of  parents;  fear,  that  the  injured 
one  will  be  succored  by  the  others  who  are  his  brothers,  sons, 
fathers. 

That  is  true,  he  replied. 

Then  in  every  way  the  laws  will  help  the  citizens  to  keep  the 
peace  with  one  another? 

Yes,  there  will  be  no  want  of  peace. 

And  as  the  guardians  will  never  quarrel  among  themselves 
there  will  be  no  danger  of  the  rest  of  the  city  being  divided  either 
against  them  or  against  one  another. 

None  whatever. 

I  hardly  like  even  to  mention  the  little  meannesses  of  which 
they  will  be  rid,  for  they  are  beneath  notice:  such,  for  example,  as 
the  flattery  of  the  rich  by  the  poor,  and  all  the  pains  and  pangs 
which  men  experience  in  bringing  up  a  family,  and  in  finding  money 
to  buy  necessaries  for  their  household,  borrowing  and  then  repu- 
diating, getting  how  they  can,  and  giving  the  money  into  the  hands 


PLATO  35 

of  women  and  slaves  to  keep — the  many  evils  of  so  many  kinds 
which  people  suffer  in  this  way  are  mean  enough  and  obvious 
enough,  and  not  worth  speaking  of.1 


5.     Government  by  Philosophers 2 

We  were  inquiring  into  the  nature  of  absolute  justice  and  into 
the  character  of  the  perfectly  just,  and  into  injustice  and  the 
perfectly  unjust,  that  we  might  have  an  ideal.  We  were  to  look 
at  these  in  order  that  we  might  judge  of  our  own  happiness  and 
unhappiness  according  to  the  standard  which  they  exhibited  and 
the  degree  in  which  we  resembled  them,  but  not  with  any  view  of 
showing  that  they  could  exist  in  fact. 

True,  he  said. 

Would  a  painter  be  any  the  worse  because,  after  having  de- 
lineated with  consummate  art  an  ideal  of  a  perfectly  beautiful 
man,  he  was  unable  to  show  that  any  such  man  could  ever  have 
existed? 

He  would  be  none  the  worse. 

Well,  and  were  we  not  creating  an  ideal  of  a  perfect  state? 

To  be  sure. 

And  is  our  theory  a  worse  theory  because  we  are  unable  to 
prove  the  possibility  of  a  city  being  ordered  in  the  manner  de- 
scribed? 

Surely  not,  he  replied. 

That  is  the  truth,  I  said.  But  if,  at  your  request,  I  am  to  try 
and  show  how  and  under  what  conditions  the  possibility  is  highest, 
I  must  ask  you,  having  this  in  view,  to  repeat  your  former  admis- 
sions. * 

What  admissions? 

I  want  to  know  whether  ideals  are  ever  fully  realized  in  language? 
Does  not  the  word  express  more  than  the  fact,  and  must  not  the 
actual,  whatever  a  man  may  think,  always,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
fall  short  of  the  truth?  What  do  you  say? 

I  agree. 

Then  you  must  not  insist  on  my  proving  that  the  actual  state 
will  in  every  respect  coincide  with  the  ideal:  if  we  are  only 
able  to  discover  how  a  city  may  be  governed  nearly  as  we  proposed, 
you  will  admit  that  we  have  discovered  the  possibility  which  you 

iV,  457-465.    Jowett,  pp.  150-160. 

2V,  472-473;    VI,    484-490,   502-504;    VII,   520-521,  536-537,  540-54L 

Jowett,  pp.  I69-I7I,    I80-I88,    202-203,    220-222,    240-241,    244-246. 


36  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

demand;  and  will  be  contented.  I  am  sure  that  I  should  be  con- 
tented— will  not  you? 

Yes,  I  will. 

Let  me  next  endeavor  to  show  what  is  that  fault  in  states  which 
is  the  cause  of  their  present  maladministration,  and  what  is  the 
least  change  which  will  enable  a  state  to  pass  into  the  truer  form; 
and  let  the  change,  if  possible,  be  of  one  thing  only,  or,  if  not,  of 
two;  at  any  rate,  let  the  changes  be  as  few  and  slight  as  possible. 

Certainly,  he  replied. 

I  think,  I  said,  that  there  might  be  a  reform  of  the  state  if  only 
one  change  were  made,  which  is  not  a  slight  or  easy  though  still 
a  possible  one. 

What  is  it?  he  said. 

Now  then,  I  said,  I  go  to  meet  that  which  I  liken  to  the  greatest 
of  the  waves;  yet  shall  the  word  be  spoken,  even  though  the  wave 
break  and  drown  me  in  laughter  and  dishonor;  and  do  you  mark 
my  words. 

Proceed. 

I  said:  Until  philosophers  are  kings,  or  the  kings  and  princes 
of  this  world  have  the  spirit  and  power  of  philosophy,  and  political 
greatness  and  wisdom  meet  in  one,  and  those  commoner  natures  who 
pursue  either  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other  are  compelled  to  stand  aside, 
cities  will  never  have  rest  from  their  evils, — no,  nor  the  human  race, 
as  I  believe, — and  then  only  will  this  our  state  have  a  possibility  of 
life  and  behold  the  light  of  day.  Such  was  the  thought,  my  dear 
Glaucon,  which  I  would  fain  have  uttered  if  it  had  not  seemed  too 
extravagant ;  for  to  be  convinced  that  in  no  other  state  can  there 
be  happiness  private  or  public  is  indeed  a  hard  thing.1 

And  thus,  Glaucon,  after  the  argument  has  gone  a  weary  way, 
the  true  and  the  false  philosophers  have  at  length  appeared  in 
view. 

I  do  not  think,  he  said,  that  the  way  could  have  been  shortened. 

I  suppose  not,  I  said;  and  yet  I  believe  that  we  might  have  had 
a  better  view  of  both  of  them  if  the  discussion  could  have  been 
confined  to  this  one  subject  and  if  there  were  not  many  other 
questions  awaiting  us,  which  he  who  desires  to  see  in  what  respect 
the  life  of  the  just  differs  from  that  of  the  unjust  must  consider. 

And  what  is  the  next  question?  he  asked. 

Surely,  I  said,  the  one  which  follows  next  in  order.  Inasmuch 
as  philosophers  only  are  able  to  grasp  the  eternal  and  unchangeable, 
and  those  who  wander  in  the  region  of  the  many  and  variable  are 

*V,  472-473-    Jowett,  pp.  169-171. 


PLATO  37 

not  philosophers,  I  must  ask  you  which  of  the  two  classes  should  be 
the  rulers  of  our  state? 

And  how  can  we  rightly  answer  that  question? 

Whichever  of  the  two  are  best  able  to  guard  the  laws  and 
institutions  of  our  state — let  them  be  our  guardians. 

Very  good. 

Neither,  I  said,  can  there  be  any  question  that  the  guardian  who 
is  to  keep  anything  should  have  eyes  rather  than  no  eyes? 

There  can  be  no  question  of  that. 

And  are  not  those  who  are  verily  and  indeed  wanting  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  true  being  of  each  thing,  and  who  have  in  their 
souls  no  clear  pattern,  and  are  unable  as  with  a  painter's  eye  to 
look  at  the  absolute  truth  and  to  that  original  to  repair,  and  having 
perfect  vision  of  the  other  world  to  order  the  laws  about  beauty, 
goodness,  justice  in  this,  if  not  already  ordered,  and  to  guard  and 
preserve  the  order  of  them — are  not  such  persons,  I  ask,  simply 
blind? 

Truly,  he  replied,  they  are  much  in  that  condition. 

And  shall  they  be  our  guardians  when  there  are  others  who, 
besides  being  their  equals  in  experience  and  falling  short  of  them 
in  no  particular  of  virtue,  also  know  the  very  truth  of  each  thing? 

There  can  be  no  reason,  he  said,  for  rejecting  those  who  have  this 
greatest  of  all  great  qualities;  they  must  always  have  the  first 
place  unless  they  fail  in  some  other  respect. 

Suppose  then,  I  said,  that  we  determine  how  far  they  can  unite 
this  and  the  other  excellences. 

By  all  means. 

In  the  first  place,  as  we  began  by  observing,  the  nature  of  the 
philosopher  has  to  be  ascertained.  We  must  come  to  an  under- 
standing about  him,  and,  when  we  have  done  so,  then,  if  I  am  not 
mistaken,  we  shall  also  acknowledge  that  such  a  union  of  quali- 
ties is  possible,  and  that  those  in  whom  they  are  united,  and  those 
only,  should  be  rulers  in  the  state. 

What  do  you  mean? 

Let  us  suppose  that  philosophical  minds  always  love  knowledge 
of  a  sort  which  shows  them  the  eternal  nature  not  varying  from 
generation  and  corruption. 

Agreed. 

And  further,  I  said,  let  us  agree  that  they  are  lovers  of  all  true 
being;  there  is  no  part  whether  greater  or  less,  or  more  or  less 
honorable,  which  they  are  willing  to  renounce;  as  we  said  before 
of  the  lover  and  the  man  of  ambition. 

True. 


38  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

And  if  they  are  to  be  what  we  were  describing,  is  there  not 
another  quality  which  they  should  also  possess? 

What  quality? 

Truthfulness:  they  will  never  intentionally  receive  into  their 
mind  falsehood,  which  is  their  detestation,  and  they  will  love  the 
truth. 

Yes,  that  may  be  safely  affirmed  of  them. 

"May  be,"  my  friend,  I  replied,  is  not  the  word;  say  rather, 
"must  be  affirmed":  for  he  whose  nature  is  amorous  of  anything 
cannot  help  loving  all  that  belongs  or  is  akin  to  the  object  of  his 
affections. 

Right,  he  said. 

And  is  there  anything  more  akin  to  wisdom  than  truth? 

How  can  there  be? 

Can  the  same  nature  be  a  lover  of  wisdom  and  a  lover  of  false- 
hood? 

Never. 

The  true  lover  of  learning  then  must  from  his  earliest  youth, 
as  far  as  in  him  lies,  desire  all  truth? 

\ssuredly. 

But  then  again,  as  we  know  by  experience,  he  whose  desires 
are  strong  in  one  direction  will  have  them  weaker  in  others;  they 
will  be  like  a  stream  which  has  been  drawn  off  into  another  channel. 

True. 

He  whose  desires  are  drawn  towards  knowledge  in  every  form 
will  be  absorbed  in  the  pleasures  of  the  soul,  and  will  hardly  feel 
bodily  pleasure — I  mean,  if  he  be  a  true  philosopher  and  not  a 
sham  one. 

That  is  most  certain. 

Such  a  one  is  sure  to  be  temperate  and  the  reverse  of  covetous; 
for  the  motives  which  make  another  man  desirous  of  having  and 
spending,  have  no  place  in  his  character. 

Very  true. 

Another  criterion  of  the  philosophical  nature  has  also  to  be 
considered. 

What  is  that? 

There  should  be  no  secret  corner  of  illiberality;  nothing  can 
be  more  antagonistic  than  meanness  to  a  soul  which  is  ever  long- 
ing after  the  whole  of  things  both  divine  and  human. 

Most  true,  he  replied. 

Then  how  can  he  who  has  magnificence  of  mind  and  is  the  spec- 
tator of  all  time  and  all  existence,  think  much  of  human  life? 

He  cannot. 


PLATO  39 

Or  can  such  a  one  account  death  fearful? 

No  indeed. 

Then  the  cowardly  and  mean  nature  has  no  part  in  true  philos- 
ophy? 

Certainly  not. 

Or  again:  can  he  who  is  harmoniously  constituted,  who  is  not 
covetous  or  mean,  or  a  boaster,  or  a  coward — can  he,  I  say,  ever 
be  unjust  or  hard  in  his  dealings? 

Impossible. 

Then  you  will  soon  observe  whether  a  man  is  just  and  gentle, 
or  rude  and  unsociable;  these  are  the  signs  which  distinguish  even 
in  youth  the  philosophical  nature  from  the  unphilosophical. 

True. 

There  is  another  point  which  should  be  remarked. 

What  point? 

Whether  he  has  or  has  not  a  pleasure  in  learning;  for  no  one  will 
love  that  which  gives  him  pain,  and  in  which  after  much  toil  he 
makes  little  progress. 

Certainly  not. 

And  again,  if  he  is  forgetful  and  retains  nothing  of  what  he 
learns,  will  he  not  be  an  empty  vessel? 

That  is  certain. 

Laboring  in  vain,  he  must  end  in  hating  himself  and  his  fruit- 
less occupation? 

Yes. 

Then  a  soul  which  forgets  cannot  be  ranked  among  genuine 
philosophic  natures;  we  must  insist  that  the  philosopher  should 
have  a  good  memory? 

Certainly. 

And  once  more,  the  inharmonious  and  unseemly  nature  can 
only  tend  to  disproportion? 

Undoubtedly. 

And  do  you  consider  truth  to  be  akin  to  proportion  or  to  dis- 
proportion? 

To  proportion. 

Then,  besides  other  qualities,  we  must  try  to  find  a  naturally 
well-proportioned  and  gracious  mind,  which  will  move  spontane- 
ously towards  the  true  being  of  everything. 

Certainly. 

Well,  and  do  not  all  these  qualities,  which  we  have  been  enumer- 
ating, go  together,  and  are  they  not,  in  a  manner,  necessary  to 
a  soul,  which  is  to  have  a  full  and  perfect  participation  of  being? 

They  are  absolutely  necessary,  he  replied. 


40  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

And  must  not  that  be  a  blameless  study  which  he  only  can 
pursue  who  has  the  gift  of  a  good  memory,  and  is  quick  to  learn, — 
noble,  gracious,  the  friend  of  truth,  justice,  courage,  temperance, 
who  are  his  kindred? 

The  god  of  jealousy  himself,  he  said,  could  find  no  fault  with 
such  a  study. 

And  to  men  like  him,  I  said,  when  perfected  by  years  and  educa- 
tion, and  to  these  only  you  will  intrust  the  state. 

Here  Adeimantus  interposed  and  said:  To  these  statements, 
Socrates,  no  one  can  offer  a  reply;  but  when  you  talk  in  this  way,  a 
strange  feeling  passes  over  the  minds  of  your  hearers :  They  fancy 
that  they  are  led  astray  a  little  at  each  step  in  the  argument,  owing 
to  their  own  want  of  skill  in  asking  and  answering  questions;  these 
littles  accumulate,  and  at  the  end  of  the  discussion  they  are  found 
to  have  sustained  a  mighty  overthrow  and  all  their  former  notions 
appear  to  be  turned  upside  down.  And  as  unskilful  players  of 
draughts  are  at  last  shut  up  by  their  more  skilful  adversaries  and 
have  no  piece  to  move,  so  they  too  find  themselves  shut  up  at  last; 
for  they  have  nothing  to  say  in  this  new  game  of  which  words  are 
the  counters;  and  yet  all  the  time  they  are  in  the  right.  The 
observation  is  suggested  to  me  by  what  is  now  occurring.  For  any 
one  of  us  might  say,  that  although  in  words  he  is  not  able  to  meet 
you  at  at  each  step  of  the  argument,  he  sees  as  a  fact  that  the  vo- 
taries of  philosophy,  when  they  carry  on  the  study,  not  only  in 
youth  as  a  part  of  education,  but  as  the  pursuit  of  their  maturer 
years,  most  of  them  become  strange  monsters,  not  to  say  utter 
rogues,  and  that  those  who  may  be  considered  the  best  of  them 
are  made  useless  to  the  world  by  the  very  study  which  you  extol. 

Well,  and  do  you  think  that  those  who  say  so  are  wrong? 

I  cannot  tell,  he  replied;  but  I  should  like  to  know  what  is  your 
opinion. 

Hear  my  answer;  I  am  of  opinion  that  they  are  quite  right. 

Then  how  can  you  be  justified  in  saying  that  cities  will  not  cease 
from  evil  until  philosophers  rule  in  them,  when  philosophers  are 
acknowledged  by  us  to  be  of  no  use  to  them? 

You  ask  a  question,  I  said,  to  which  a  reply  can  only  be  given 
in  a  parable. 

Yes,  Socrates;  and  that  is  a  way  of  speaking  to  which  you  are 
not  at  all  accustomed,  I  suppose. 

I  perceive,  I  said,  that  you  are  vastly  amused  at  having  plunged 
me  into  such  a  hopeless  discussion;  but  now  hear  the  parable,  and 
then  you  will  be  still  more  amused  at  the  meagerness  of  my  imagi- 
nation: for  the  manner  in  which  the  best  men  are  treated  in  their 


PLATO  41 

own  states  is  so  grievous  that  no  single  thing  on  earth  is  comparable 
to  it;  and  therefore,  if  I  am  to  plead  their  cause,  I  must  have  re- 
course to  fiction,  and  put  together  a  figure  made  up  of  many  things, 
like  the  fabulous  unions  of  goats  and  stags  which  are  found  in 
pictures.  Imagine  then  a  fleet  or  a  ship  in  which  there  is  a  captain 
who  is  taller  and  stronger  than  any  of  the  crew,  but  he  is  a  little 
deaf  and  has  a  similar  infirmity  in  sight,  and  his  knowledge  of 
navigation  is  not  much  better.  The  sailors  are  quarreling  with 
one  another  about  the  steering — every  one  is  of  opinion  that 
he  has  a  right  to  steer,  though  he  has  never  learned  the  art  of 
navigation  and  cannot  tell  who  taught  him  or  when  he  learned, 
and  will  further  assert  that  it  cannot  be  taught,  and  they  are  ready 
to  cut  in  pieces  any  one  who  says  the  contrary.  They  throng  about 
the  captain,  begging  and  praying  him  to  commit  the  helm  to 
them;  and  if  at  any  time  they  do  not  prevail,  but  others  are  pre- 
ferred to  them,  they  kill  the  others  or  throw  them  overboard,  and 
having  first  chained  up  the  noble  captain's  senses  with  drink  or 
some  narcotic  drug,  they  mutiny  and  take  possession  of  the  ship 
and  make  free  with  the  stores;  thus,  eating  and  drinking,  they  pro- 
ceed on  their  voyage  in  such  manner  as  might  be  expected  of 
them.  Him  who  is  their  partisan  and  cleverly  aids  them  in  their 
plot  for  getting  the  ship  out  of  the  captain's  hands  into  their  own 
whether  by  force  or  persuasion,  they  compliment  with  the  name 
of  sailor,  pilot,  able  seaman,  and  abuse  the  other  sort  of  man,  whom 
they  call  a  good-for-nothing;  but  that  the  true  pilot  must  pay  atten- 
tion to  the  year  and  seasons  and  sky  and  stars  and  winds,  and 
whatever  else  belongs  to  his  art,  if  he  intends  to  be  really  qualified 
for  the  command  of  a  ship,  and  that  he  must  and  will  be  the 
steerer,  whether  other  people  like  or  not — the  possibility  of  this 
union  of  authority  with  the  steerer's  art  has  never  seriously  entered 
into  their  thoughts  or  been  made  part  of  their  calling.  Now 
in  vessels  which  are  in  a  state  of  mutiny  and  by  sailors  who  are 
mutineers,  how  will  the  true  pilot  be  regarded?  Will  he  not  be 
called  by  them  a  prater,  a  star-gazer,  a  good-for-nothing? 

Of  course,  said  Adeimantus. 

Then  you  will  hardly  need,  I  said,  to  hear  the  interpretation 
of  the  figure,  which  describes  the  true  philosopher  in  his  relation 
to  the  state;  for  you  understand  already. 

Certainly. 

Then  suppose  you  now  take  this  parable  to  the  gentleman  who 
is  surprised  at  finding  that  philosophers  have  no  honor  in  their 
cities;  explain  it  to  him  and  try  to  convince  him  that  their  having 
honor  would  be  far  more  extraordinary. 


42  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

I  will. 

Say  to  him,  that,  in  deeming  the  best  votaries  of  philosophy  to 
be  useless  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  he  is  right;  but  also  tell  him 
to  attribute  their  uselessness  to  the  fault  of  those  who  will  not 
use  them,  and  not  to  themselves.  The  pilot  should  not  humbly 
beg  the  sailors  to  be  commanded  by  him — that  is  not  the  order  of 
nature;  neither  are  "the  wise  to  go  to  the  doors  of  the  rich" — the 
ingenious  author  of  this  saying  told  a  lie — but  the  truth  is,  that, 
when  a  man  is  ill,  whether  he  be  rich  or  poor,  to  the  physician  he 
must  go,  and  he  who  wants  to  be  governed,  to  him  who  is  able  to 
govern.  The  ruler  who  is  good  for  anything  ought  not  to  beg  his 
subjects  to  be  ruled  by  him;  although  the  present  governors  of  man- 
kind are  of  a  different  stamp;  they  may  be  justly  compared  to  the 
mutinous  sailors,  and  the  true  helmsmen  to  those  who  are  called 
by  them  good-for-nothings  and  star-gazers. 

Precisely  so,  he  said. 

For  these  reasons,  and  among  men  like  these,  philosophy,  the 
noblest  pursuit  of  all,  is  not  likely  to  be  much  esteemed  by  those 
of  the  opposite  faction;  not  that  the  greatest  and  most  lasting 
injury  is  done  to  her  by  her  opponents,  but  by  her  own  professing 
followers,  the  same  of  whom  you  suppose  the  accuser  to  say,  that 
the  greater  number  of  them  are  arrant  rogues,  and  the  best  are 
useless;  in  which  opinion  I  agreed. 

Yes. 

And  the  reason  why  the  good  are  useless  has  now  been  explained? 

True. 

Then  shall  we  proceed  to  show  that  the  corruption  of  the  majori- 
ty is  also  unavoidable,  and  that  this  is  not  to  be  laid  to  the  charge 
of  philosophy  any  more  than  the  other? 

By  all  means. 

And  let  us  ask  and  answer  in  turn,  first  going  back  to  the  de- 
scription of  the  gentle  and  noble  nature.  Truth,  as  you  will 
remember,  was  his  leader,  whom  he  followed  always  and  in  all 
things;  failing  in  this,  he  was  an  impostor,  and  had  no  part  or 
lot  in  true  philosophy. 

Yes,  that  was  said. 

Well,  and  is  not  this  one  quality,  to  mention  no  others,  greatly 
at  variance  with  present  notions  of  him? 

Certainly,  he  said. 

And  have  we  not  a  right  to  say  in  his  defence,  that  the  true 
lover  of  knowledge  is  always  striving  after  being — that  is  his 
nature;  he  will  not  rest  in  the  mutiplicity  of  individuals  which  is 
an  appearance  only,  but  will  go  on — the  keen  edge  will  not  be 


PLATO  43 

blunted,  nor  the  force  of  his  desire  abate  until  he  have  attained  the 
knowledge  of  the  true  nature  of  every  essence  by  a  sympathetic 
and  kindred  power  in  the  soul,  and  by  that  power  drawing  near  and 
mingling  and  becoming  incorporate  with  very  being,  having  begot- 
ten mind  and  truth,  he  will  have  knowledge  and  will  live  and  grow 
truly,  and  then,  and  not  till  then,  will  he  cease  from  his  travail. 

Nothing,  he  said,  can  be  more  just  than  such  a  description  of  him. 

And  will  the  love  of  a  lie  be  any  part  of  a  philosopher's  nature? 
Will  he  not  utterly  hate  a  lie? 

He  will. 

And  when  truth  is  the  captain,  we  cannot  suspect  any  evil  of 
the  band  which  he  leads? 

Impossible. 

Justice  and  health  of  mind  will  be  of  the  company,  and  tem- 
perance will  follow  after? 

True,  he  replied.1 

I  omitted  the  troublesome  business  of  the  possession  of  women, 
and  the  procreation  of  children,  and  the  appointment  of  the  rulers, 
because  I  knew  that  the  perfect  state  would  be  eyed  with  jealousy 
and  was  difficult  of  attainment;  but  that  piece  of  cleverness  was 
not  of  much  service  to  me,  for  I  had  to  discuss  them  all  the  same. 
The  women  and  children  are  now  disposed  of,  but  the  other  ques- 
tion of  the  rulers  must  be  investigated  from  the  very  beginning. 
We  were  saying,  as  you  will  remember,  that  they  were  to  be  lovers 
of  their  country,  tried  by  the  test  of  pleasures  and  pains,  and 
neither  in  hardships,  nor  in  dangers,  nor  at  any  other  critical  mo- 
ment were  to  lose  their  patriotism — he  was  to  be  rejected  who 
failed,  but  he  who  always  came  forth  pure,  like  gold  tried  in  the 
refiner's  fire,  was  to  be  made  a  ruler,  and  to  receive  honors  and 
rewards  in  life  and  after  death.  This  was  the  sort  of  thing  which 
was  being  said,  and  then  the  argument  turned  aside  and  veiled 
her  face ;  not  liking  to  stir  the  question  which  has  now  arisen. 

I  perfectly  remember,  he  said. 

Yes,  my  friend,  I  said,  .and  I  then  shrank  from  hazarding  the 
bold  word;  but  now  let  me  dare  to  say — that  the  perfect  guardian 
must  be  a  philosopher. 

Yes,  he  said,  let  that  be  affirmed. 

And  do  not  suppose  that  there  will  be  many  of  them;  for  the 
gifts  which  were  deemed  by  us  to  be  essential  rarely  grow  to- 
gether; they  are  mostly  found  in  shreds  and  patches. 

What  do  you  mean?  he  said. 

*VI,  484-490.    Jowett,  pp.  180-188. 


44  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

You  are  aware,  I  replied,  that  quick  intelligence,  memory,  sagac- 
ity, cleverness,  and  similar  qualities,  do  not  often  grow  together, 
and  that  persons  who  possess  them  and  are  at  the  same  time  high- 
spirited  and  magnanimous  are  not  so  constituted  by  nature  as  to 
live  orderly  and  in  a  peaceful  and  settled  manner;  they  are  driven 
any  way  by  their  impulses,  and  all  solid  principle  goes  out  of 
them. 

Very  true,  he  said. 

On  the  other  hand,  those  steadfast  natures  which  can  better 
be  depended  upon,  which  in  a  battle  are  impregnable  to  fear  and 
immovable,  are  equally  immovable  when  there  is  anything  to  be 
learned;  they  are  always  in  a  torpid  state,  and  are  apt  to  yawn 
and  go  to  sleep  over  any  intellectual  toil. 

Quite  true. 

And  yet  we  were  saying  that  both  qualities  were  necessary  in 
those  to  whom  the  higher  education  is  to  be  imparted,  and  who 
are  to  share  in  any  office  or  command. 

Certainly,  he  said. 

And  will  they  be  a  class  which  is  rarely  found? 

Yes,  indeed. 

Then  the  aspirant  must  not  only  be  tested  in  those  labors  and 
dangers  and  pleasures  which  we  mentioned  before,  but  there  is 
another  kind  of  probation  which  we  did  not  mention — he  must 
be  exercised  also  in  many  kinds  of  knowledge,  to  see  whether  the 
soul  will  be  able  to  endure  the  highest  of  all,  or  will  faint  under 
them  as  in  any  other  studies  and  exercises.1 

Observe,  Glaucon,  that  there  will  be  no  injustice  in  com- 
pelling our  philosophers  to  have  a  care  and  providence  of  others; 
we  shall  explain  to  them  that  in  other  states,  men  of  their  class 
are  not  obliged  to  share  in  the  toils  of  politics:  and  this  is  reason- 
able, for  they  grow  up  at  their  own  sweet  will,  and  the  government 
would  rather  not  have  them.  Being  self-taught,  they  cannot  be 
expected  to  show  any  gratitude  for  a  culture  which  they  have  never 
received.  But  we  have  brought  you  into  the  world  to  be  rulers  of 
the  hive,  kings  of  yourselves  and  of  the  other  citizens,  and  have 
educated  you  far  better  and  more  perfectly  than  they  have  been 
educated,  and  you  are  better  able  to  share  in  the  double  duty. 
Wherefore  each  of  you,  when  his  turn  comes,  must  go  down  to  the 
general  underground  abode,  and  get  the  habit  of  seeing  in  the 
dark.  When  you  have  acquired  the  habit,  you  will  see  ten  thou- 
sand times  better  than  the  inhabitants  of  the  den,  and  you  will 

1 VI,  502-504.   Jowett,  pp.  202-203. 


PLATO  45 

know  what  the  several  images  are,  and  what  they  represent,  be- 
cause you  have  seen  the  beautiful  and  just  and  good  in  their  truth. 
And  thus  our  state,  which  is  also  yours,  will  be  a  reality,  and  not  a 
dream  only,  and  will  be  administered  in  a  spirit  unlike  that  of  other 
states,  in  which  men  fight  with  one  another  about  shadows  only 
and  are  distracted  in  the  struggle  for  power,  which  in  their  eyes 
is  a  great  good.  Whereas  the  truth  is  that  the  state  in  which  the 
rulers  are  most  reluctant  to  govern  is  always  the  best  and  most 
quietly  governed,  and  the  state  in  which  they  are  most  eager, 
the  worst. 

Quite  true,  he  replied. 

And  will  our  pupils,  when  they  hear  this,  refuse  to  take  their 
turn  at  the  toils  of  state,  when  they  are  allowed  to  spend  the 
greater  part  of  their  time  with  one  another  in  the  heavenly  light? 

Impossible,  he  answered;  for  they  are  just  men,  and  the  com- 
mands which  we  impose  upon  them  are  just ;  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  every  one  of  them  will  take  office  as  a  stern  necessity,  and  not 
after  the  fashion  of  our  present  rulers  of  state. 

Yes,  my  friend,  I  said;  and  there  lies  the  point.  You  must 
contrive  for  your  future  rulers  another  and  a  better  life  than  that 
of  a  ruler,  and  then  you  may  have  a  well-ordered  state;  for  only 
in  the  state  which  offers  this,  will  they  rule  who  are  truly  rich, 
not  in  silver  and  gold,  but  in  virtue  and  wisdom,  which  are  the 
true  blessings  of  life.  Whereas  if  they  go  to  the  administration 
of  public  affairs,  poor  and  hungering  after  their  own  private  ad- 
vantage, thinking  that  hence  they  are  to  snatch  the  chief  good, 
order  there  can  never  be;  for  they  will  be  fighting  about  office, 
and  the  civil  and  domestic  broils  which  thus  arise  will  be  the  ruin 
of  the  rulers  themselves  and  of  the  whole  state. 

Most  true,  he  replied. 

And  the  only  life  which  looks  down  upon  the  life  of  political 
ambition  is  that  of  true  philosophy.  Do  you  know  of  any  other? 

Indeed,  I  do  not,  he  said. 

And  those  who  govern  ought  not  to  be  lovers  of  the  task? 
For,  if  they  are,  there  will  be  rival  lovers,  and  they  will  fight. 

No  question. 

Who  then  are  those  whom  we  shall  compel  to  be  guardians? 
Surely  they  will  be  the  men  who  are  wisest  about  affairs  of  state, 
and  by  whom  the  state  is  administered,  and  who  at  the  same  time 
have  other  honors  and  another  and  better  life  than  that  of  poli- 
tics? 

They  are  the  men,  and  I  will  choose  them,  he  replied.1 

1VII,  520-521.     Jowett,  pp.  220-222. 


46  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

And  now  let  me  remind  you  that,  although  in  our  former  selec- 
tion we  chose  old  men,  we  must  not  do  so  in  this.  Solon  was  under 
a  delusion  when  he  said  that  a  man  when  he  grows  old  may  learn 
many  things — for  he  can  no  more  learn  much  than  he  can  run 
much;  youth  is  the  time  for  any  extraordinary  toil. 

Of  course. 

And,  therefore,  calculation  and  geometry  and  all  the  other 
elements  of  instruction,  which  are  a  preparation  for  dialectic, 
should  be  presented  to  the  mind  in  childhood;  not,  however,  under 
any  notion  of  forcing  our  system  of  education. 

Why  not? 

Because  a  freeman  ought  not  to  be  a  slave  in  the  acquisition 
of  knowledge  of  any  kind.  Bodily  exercise,  when  compulsory, 
does  no  harm  to  the  body;  but  knowledge  which  is  acquired  under 
compulsion  obtains  no  hold  on  the  mind. 

Very  true. 

Then,  my  good  friend,  I  said,  do  not  use  compulsion,  but  let 
early  education  be  a  sort  of  amusement;  you  will  then  be  better 
able  to  find  out  the  natural  bent'. 

That  is  a  very  rational  notion,  he  said. 

Do  you  remember  that  the  children,  too,  were  to  be  taken  to 
see  the  battle  on  horseback;  and  that  if  there  were  no  danger 
they  were  to  be  brought  close  up  and,  like  young  hounds,  have  a 
taste  of  blood  given  them? 

Yes,  I  remember. 

The  same  practice  may  be  followed,  I  said,  in  all  these  things — 
labors,  lessons,  dangers — and  he  who  is  most  at  home  in  all  of 
them  ought  to  be  enrolled  in  a  select  number. 

At  what  age? 

At  the  age  when  the  necessary  gymnastics  are  over:  the  period 
whether  of  two  or  three  years  which  passes  in  this  sort  of  training 
is  useless  for  any  other  purpose;  for  sleep  and  exercise  are  unpro- 
pitious  to  learning;  and  the  trial  of  who  is  first  in  gymnastic  exer- 
cises is  one  of  the  most  important  tests  to  which  our  youth  are 
subjected. 

Certainly,  he  replied. 

After  that  time  those  who  are  selected  from  the  class  of  twenty 
years  old  will  be  promoted  to  higher  honor,  and  the  sciences  which 
they  learned  without  any  order  in  their  early  education  will  now 
be  brought  together,  and  they  will  be  able  to  see  the  natural 
relationship  of  them  to  one  another  and  to  true  being. 

Yes,  he  said,  that  is  the  only  kind  of  knowledge  which  takes 
lasting  root. 


PLATO  47 

Yes,  I  said;  and  the  capacity  for  such  knowledge  is  the  great 
criterion  of  dialectical  talent:  the  comprehensive  mind  is  always 
the  dialectical. 

I  agree  with  you,  he  said. 

These,  I  said,  are  the  points  which  you  must  consider;  and 
those  who  have  most  of  this  comprehension,  and  who  are  most 
steadfast  in  their  learning,  and  in  their  military  and  other  appoint- 
ed duties,  when  they  have  arrived  at  the  age  of  thirty  will  have  to 
be  chosen  by  you  out  of  the  select  class,  and  elevated  to  higher 
honor;  and  you  will  have  to  prove  them  by  the  help  of  dialectic, 
in  order  to  learn  which  of  them  is  able  to  give  up  the  use  of  sight 
and  the  other  senses,  and  in  company  with  truth  to  attain  absolute 
being.1 

Suppose,  I  said,  the  study  of  philosophy  to  take  the  place  of 
gymnastics  and  to  be  continued  diligently  and  earnestly  and  ex- 
clusively for  twice  the  number  of  years  which  were  passed  in  bodily 
exercise — will  that  be  enough? 

Would  you  say  six  or  four  years?  he  asked. 

Say  five  years,  I  replied;  at  the  end  of  the  time  they  must  be 
sent  down  again  into  the  den  and  compelled  to  hold  any  military 
or  other  office  which  young  men  are  qualified  to  hold:  in  this  way 
they  will  get  their  experience  of  life,  and  there  will  be  an  oppor- 
tunity of  trying  whether,  when  they  are  drawn  all  manner  of 
ways  by  temptation,  they  will  stand  firm  or  flinch. 

And  how  long  is  this  stage  of  their  lives  to  last? 

Fifteen  years,  I  answered;  and  when  they  have  reached  fifty 
years  of  age,  then  let  those  who  still  survive  and  have  distinguished 
themselves  in  every  action  of  their  lives  and  in  every  branch  of 
knowledge  come  at  last  to  their  consummation:  the  time  has  now 
arrived  at  which  they  must  raise  the  eye  of  the  soul  to  the  universal 
light  which  lightens  all  things,  and  behold  the  absolute  good;  for 
that  is  the  pattern  according  to  which  they  are  to  order  the  state 
and  the  lives  of  individuals,  and  the  remainder  of  their  own 
lives  also;  making  philosophy  their  chief  pursuit,  but,  when 
their  turn  comes,  toiling  also  at  politics  and  ruling  for  the  pub- 
lic good,  not  as  though  they  were  performing  some  heroic 
action,  but  simply  as  a  matter  of  duty;  and  when  they  have 
brought  up  in  each  generation  others  like  themselves  and  left 
them  in  their  place  to  be  governors  of  the  state,  then  they  will 
depart  to  the  Islands  of  the  Blest  and  dwell  there;  and  the  city 
will  give  them  public  memorials  and  sacrifices  and  honor  them, 

1 VII,  536-537.    Jowett,  pp.  240-241. 


48  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

if  the  Pythian  oracle  consent,  as  demigods,  but  if  not,  as  in  any 
case  blessed  and  divine. 

You  are  a  sculptor,  Socrates,  and  have  made  statues  of  our 
governors  faultless  in  beauty. 

Yes,  I  said,  Glaucon,  and  of  our  governesses  too;  for  you  must 
not  suppose  that  what  I  have  been  saying  applies  to  men  only  and 
not  to  women  as  far  as  their  natures  can  go. 

There  you  are  right,  he  said,  since  we  have  made  them  to  share 
in  all  things  like  the  men. 

Well,  I  said,  and  you  would  agree  (would  you  not?)  that  what 
has  been  said  about  the  state  and  the  government  is  not  a  mere 
dream,  and  although  difficult  not  impossible,  but  only  possible 
in  the  way  which  has  been  supposed;  that  is  to  say,  when  the  true 
philosopher  kings  are  born  in  a  state,  one  or  more  of  them, 
despising  the  honors  of  this  present  world  which  they  deem  mean 
and  worthless,  esteeming  above  all  things  right  and  the  honor 
that  springs  from  right,  and  regarding  justice  as  the  greatest  and 
most  necessary  of  all  things,  whose  ministers  they  are,  and  whose 
principles  will  be  exalted  by  them  when  they  set  in  order  their 
own  city? 

How  will  they  proceed? 

They  will  begin  by  sending  out  into  the  country  all  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  city  who  are  more  than  ten  years  old,  and  will  take 
possession  of  their  children,  who  will  be  unaffected  by  the  habits 
of  their  parents;  these  they  will  train  in  their  own  habits  and  laws, 
I  mean  in  the  laws  which  we  have  given  them:  and  in  this  way  the 
state  and  constitution  of  which  we  were  speaking  will  soonest  and 
most  easily  attain  happiness,  and  the  nation  which  has  such  a 
constitution  will  gain  most. 

Yes,  that  will  be  the  best  way.  And  I  think,  Socrates,  that  you 
have  very  well  described  how,  if  ever,  such  a  constitution  might 
come  into  being. 

Enough  then  of  the  perfect  state,  and  of  the  man  who  bears 
its  image — there  is  no  difficulty  in  seeing  how  we  shall  describe 
him. 

There  is  no  difficulty,  he  replied;  and  I  agree  with  you  in  think- 
ing that  nothing  more  need  be  said.1 


1 VII,  540-541.   Jowett,  pp.  244-246. 


PLATO  49 

SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

Zeller,  Plato  and  the  Older  Academy,  ch.  i. 

Grote,  Plato  and  the  Other  Companions  of  Socrates,  Vol.  I,  ch.  iii. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  Ancient  and  Mediaeval,  ch.  ii,  §§  2-6. 

Barker,  The  Political  Thought  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  chs.  ii-iv. 

Zeller,  Plato  and  the  Older  Academy,  chs.  iv-vi,  x-xi,  xiii. 

Campbell,  Plato's-  Republic. 

Grote,  Plato  and  the  Other  Companions  of  Socrates,  Vol.  I,  ch.  vi;  Vol.  II, 

chs.  xxvii-xxviii;  Vol.  Ill,  chs.  xxxiv-xxxvii. 
Willoughby,  Political  Theories  of  the  Ancient  World,  chs.  vii-ix. 
Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  I,  pp.  103-164. 
Neiileship,  Lectures  on  the  Republic  of  Plato. 

Loos,  Studies  in  the  Politics  of  Aristotle  and  the  Republic  of  Plato,  pp.  179-291. 
Bosanquet,  A  Companion  to  Plato's  Republic. 
Henkel,  Studien  zur  Geschichte  der  griechischen  Lehre  vom  Staat,  pp.   121 

et  seq. 
Susemihl,  Die  genetische  Entwickelung  der  platonischen  Philosophic,  Vol.  II, 

pp.  58-312,  559-696. 


ARISTOTLE 


H.    ARISTOTLE  (364-322  B.C.) 

• 

INTRODUCTION 

Aristotle  is  commonly  called  the  father,  or  maker,  of  political 
science.  Such  a  title  is  justified  by  the  character  of  his  political 
writing,  as  well  as  by  the  great  influence  which  his  researches  in 
this 'field  have  exerted  upon  later  political  reflection.  The  range 
of  his  discussion  is  comprehensive;  his  analysis  is  systematic; 
his  exposition  is  thorough  and  is  fully  illustrated  from  his  fund 
of  historical  knowledge  and  contemporary  observation.  The  in- 
fluence of  his  ideas  and  methods  in  political  theory  became  particu- 
larly manifest  after  the  revival  of  the  study  of  his  works  in  the 
thirteenth  century. 

Aristotle  was  a  younger  contemporary  of  Plato.  He  was  born 
at  Stagira,  in  Thrace,  his  father  being  physician  to  Amyntas  II, 
king  of  Macedonia.  While  a  youth  Aristotle  came  to  Athens  and 
was  one  of  Plato's  pupils  for  about  twenty  years.  He  next  spent 
a  few  years  at  the  court  of  Hermias,  prince  of  Atarneas,  in  Asia 
Minor;  he  fled  from  that  country  when  the  brief  tyranny  of 
Hermias  was  terminated  by  revolution.  Aristotle  was  then  invited 
to  the  Macedonian  court  by  King  Philip,  who  made  him  tutor  to 
the  young  Alexander.  Some  time  after  the  accession  of  Alexander 
to  the  Macedonian  throne  Aristotle  returned  to  Athens,  where 
he  conducted  a  school  at  the  gymnasium  called  the  Lyceum.  The 
system  of  thought  there  founded  came  to  be  known  as  the  "Peri- 
patetic;" this  is,  as  some  say,  because  Aristotle  would  meet  his 
students  in  one  of  the  walks  of  the  Lyceum,  or,  as  others  say, 
because  of  his  habit  of  strolling  about  while  giving  his  lectures. 

Aristotle,  like  Plato,  lived  through  anarchy  and  war  in  the  Greek 
states,  and  witnessed  the  failure  of  any  of  them  to  establish  lasting 
supremacy  over  the  others.  On  the  other  hand,  he  saw  the  accom- 
plishment of  Macedonian  expansion  and  lived  under  the  protection 
of,  and  for  a  time  in  close  association  with,  the  great  wielder  of 
the  strong-man  power  in  that  expansion. 

53 


54  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Aristotle's  writings  cover  a  wide  field:  logic  and  metaphysics; 
mathematics  and  physics;  the  natural  sciences;  rhetoric  and 
poetry;  ethics  and  politics.  There  is  not  complete  agreement 
among  historians  of  philosophy  as  to  the  extent  to  which  the 
metaphysical  basis  of  Aristotle's  system  accords  with  that  of  his 
teacher,  Plato.  Aristotle  criticised  Plato's  ascription  of  exclusive 
and  independent  reality  to  abstract  and  general  qualities;  and  he 
argued  that  these  general  elements  are  real  only  as  attributes  at- 
tached to  concrete  objects,  which  are  the  only  completely  real 
things.  This  philosophical  point  of  view  is  a  basis  for  inductive 
reasoning;  and  whether  or  not  the  general  theories  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle  are  reconcilable,  there  are  very  evident  differences  in 
their  methods.  These  differences  are  especially  manifest  in  their 
political  works;  Aristotle's  discussion  is  more  practical,  system- 
atic, and  precise  than  that  of  Plato,  and  it  is  based  more  on  history 
and  observation,  with  relatively  slight  allegorical  and  poetical 
embellishment.  Moreover,  politics  with  Aristotle  comes  near  to 
being  a  distinct  discipline,  separated  from  philosophy  and  ethics. 

Most  of  the  writings  of  Aristotle  that  have  come  down  to  us  are 
in  fragmentary  and  disarranged  form,  suggesting  that  the  earliest 
manuscripts  may  have  been  compiled  from  lecture  notes  of  teacher 
or  pupil.  There  is  much  repetition  in  The  Politics,  as  in  other 
works  of  Aristotle.  None  of  the  arrangements  that  have  been 
made  of  the  books  of  The  Politics  are  such  as  to  present  his  thought 
in  clear  logical  sequence.  The  selections  below  embody  his  ideas 
on  fundamental  subjects  of  political  theory,  as  follows:  the  nature, 
origin  and  end  of  the  state;  the  justification  of  slavery;'  the  defi- 
nition of  citizenship;  the  location  of  sovereignty;  forms  of  state; 
the  departments  of  government;  the  cause  and  prevention  of 
changes  in  state-form.  Following  this  order  it  is  necessary  at  a 
few  places  to  depart  from  the  order  in  which  the  passages  appear 
in  the  translation  from  which  the  selections  are  taken. 


ARISTOTLE  55 

READINGS  FROM  THE  POLITICS1 
1.     The  Nature,  End,  and  Origin  of  the  State 2 

Every  state  is  a  community  of  some  kind,  and  every  community 
is  established  with  a  view  to  some  good;  for  mankind  always  act 
in  order  to  obtain  that  which  they  think  good.  But,  if  all  com- 
munities aim  at  some  good,  the  state  or  political  community, 
which  is  the  highest  of  all,  and  which  embraces  all  the  rest,  aims, 
and  in  a  greater  degree  than  any  other,  at  the  highest  good. 

Now  there  is  an  erroneous  opiriion  that  a  statesman,  king, 
householder,  and  master  are  the  same,  and  that  they  differ,  not 
in  kind,  but  only  in  the  number  of  their  subjects.  For  example, 
the  ruler  over  a  few  is  called  a  master;  over  more,  the  manager  of 
a  household;  over  a  still  larger  number,  a  statesman  or  king,  as 
if  there  were  no  difference  between  a  great  household  and  a  small 
state.  The  distinction  which  is  made  between  the  king  and  the 
statesman  is  as  follows:  When  the  government  is  personal,  the 
ruler  is  a  king;  when,  according  to  the  principles  of  the  political 
science,  the  citizens  rule  and  are  ruled  in  turn,  then  he  is  called  a 
statesman. 

But  all  this  is  a  mistake;  for  governments  differ  in  kind,  as  will 
be  evident  to  any  one  who  considers  the  matter  according  to  the 
method  which  has  hitherto  guided  us.  As  in  other  departments 
of  science,  so  in  politics,  the  compound  should  always  be  resolved 
into  the  simple  elements  or  least  parts  of  the  whole.  We  must 
therefore  look  at  the  elements  of  which  the  state  is  composed,  in 
order  that  we  may  see  in  what  they  differ  from  one  another,  and 
whether  any  scientific  distinction  can  be  drawn  between  the  differ- 
ent kinds  of  rule. 

He  who  thus  considers  things  in  their  first  growth  and  origin, 
whether  a  state  or  anything  else,  will  obtain  the  clearest  view  of 
them.  In  the  first  place  ( i )  there  must  be  a  union  of  those  who  can- 
not exist  without  each  other;  for  example,  of  male  and  female,  that 
the  race  may  continue;  and  this  is  a  union  which  is  formed,  not 
of  deliberate  purpose,  but  because,  in  common  with  other  animals 
and  with  plants,  mankind  have  a  natural  desire  to  leave  behind 
them  an  image  of  themselves.  And  (2)  there  must  be  a  union  of 
natural  ruler  and  subject,  that  both  may  be  preserved.  For  he 
who  can  foresee  with  his  mind  is  by  nature  intended  to  be  lord 

1  The  selections  are  taken  from  The  Politics  of  Aristotle,  translated  into  English, 
by  Benjamin  Jowett,  two  volumes,  Oxford,  1885.  Published  by  the  Clarendon 
Press. 

2 1,  i,  ii,  iii  (in  part),  v;  III,  ix.    Jowett,  pp.  1-5,  7-9,  82-84. 


56  %  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

and  master,  and  he  who  can  work  with  his  body  is  a  subject,  and 
by  nature  a  slave;  hence  master  and  slave  have  the  same  interest. 
Nature,  however,  has  distinguished  between  the  female  and  the 
slave.  For  she  is  not  niggardly,  like  the  smith  who  fashions  the 
Delphian  knife  for  many  uses;  she  makes  each  thing  for  a  single 
use,  and  every  instrument  is  best  made  when  intended  for  one  and 
not  for  many  uses.  But  among  barbarians  no  distinction  is 
made  between  women  and  slaves,  because  there  is  no  natural 
ruler  among  them:  they  are  a  community  of  slaves,  male  and  fe- 
male. Wherefore  the  poets  say, — 

It  is  meet  that  Hellenes  should  rule  over  barbarians; 

as  if  they  thought  that  the  barbarian  and  the  slave  were  by  nature 
one. 

Out  of  these  two  relationships  between  man  and  woman,  master 
and  slave,  the  family  first  arises,  and  Hesiod  is  right  when  he  says, — 
First  house  and  wife  and  an  ox  for  the  plough, 

for  the  ox  is  the  poor  man's  slave.  The  family  is  the  association 
established  by  nature  for  the  supply  of  men's  everyday  wants, 
and  the  members  of  it  are  called  by  Charondas  "  companions  of 
the  cupboard"  and  by  Epimenides  the  Cretan,  "companions  of 
the  manger."  But  when  several  families  are  united,  and  the 
association  aims  at  something  more  than  the  supply  of  daily  needs, 
then  comes  into  existence  the  village.  And  the  most  natural  form 
of  the  village  appears  to  be  that  of  a  colony  from  the  family,  com- 
posed of  the  children  and  grandchildren,  who  are  said  to  be  *  'suckled 
with  the  same  milk. "  And  this  is  the  reason  why  Hellenic  states 
were  originally  governed  by  kings;  because  the  Hellenes  were 
under  royal  rule  before  they  came  together,  as  the  barbarians  still 
are.  Every  family  is  ruled  by  the  eldest,  and  therefore  in  the 
colonies  of  the  family  the  kingly  form  of  government  prevailed 
because  they  were  of  the  same  blood.  As  Homer  says  [of  the 
Cyclopes] : — 

Each  one  gives  law  to  his  children  and  to  his  wives. 

For  they  lived  dispersedly,  as  was  the  manner  in  ancient  times. 
Wherefore  men  say  that  the  gods  have  a  king,  because  they  them- 
selves either  are  or  were  in  ancient  times  under  the  rule  of  a  king. 
For  they  imagine,  not  only  the  forms  of  the  gods,  but  their  ways 
of  life  to  be  like  their  own. 

When  several  villages  are  united  in  a  single  community,  per- 
fect and  large  enough  to  be  nearly  or  quite  self -sufficing,  the  state 
comes  into  existence,  originating  in  the  bare  needs  of  life,  and  con- 
tinuing in  existence  for  the  sake  of  a  good  life.  And  therefore, 


ARISTOTLE  57 

if  the  earlier  forms  of  society  are  natural,  so  is  the  state,  for  it  is 
the  end  of  them,  and  the  [completed]  nature  is  the  end.  For  what 
each  thing  is  when  fully  developed,  we  call  its  nature,  whether  we 
are  speaking  of  a  man,  a  horse,  or  a  family.  Besides,  the  final 
cause  and  end  of  a  thing  is  the  best,  and  to  be  self-sufficing  is  the 
end  and  the  best. 

Hence  it  is  evident  that  the  state  is  a  creation  of  nature,  and 
that  man  is  by  nature  a  political  animal.  And  he  who  by  nature 
and  not  by  mere  accident  is  without  a  state,  is  either  above 
humanity,  or  below  it;  he  is  the 

Tribeless,  lawless,  hearthless  one, 

whom  Homer  denounces — the  outcast  who  is  a  lover  of  war; 
he  may  be  compared  to  a  bird  which  flies  alone. 

Now  the  reason  why  man  is  more  of  a  political  animal  than  bees 
or  any  other  gregarious  animals  is  evident.  Nature,  as  we  often 
say,  makes  nothing  in  vain,  and  man  is  the  only  animal  whom  she 
has  endowed  with  the  gift  of  speech.  And  whereas  mere  sound  is 
but  an  indication  of  pleasure  or  pain,  and  is  therefore  found  in 
other  animals  (for  their  nature  attains  to  the  perception  of  pleasure 
and  pain  and  the  intimation  of  them  to  one  another,  and  no  fur- 
ther), the  power  of  speech  is  intended  to  set  forth  the  expedient 
and  inexpedient,  and  likewise  the  just  and  the  unjust.  And  it  is  a 
characteristic  of  man  that  he  alone  has  any  sense  of  good  and  evil, 
of  just  and  unjust,  and  the  association  of  living  beings  who  have 
this  sense  makes  a  family  and  a  state. 

Thus  the  state  is  by  nature  clearly  prior  to  the  family  and  to 
the  individual,  since  the  whole  is  of  necessity  prior  to  the  part; 
for  example,  if  the  whole  body  be  destroyed,  there  will  be  no  foot 
or  hand,  except  in  an  equivocal  sense,  as  we  might  speak  of  a  stone 
hand;  for  when  destroyed  the  hand  will  be  no  better.  But  things 
are  defined  by  their  working  and  power;  and  we  ought  not  to  say 
that  they  are  the  same  when  they  are  no  longer  the  same,  but  only 
that  they  have  the  same  name.  The  proof  that  the  state  is  a 
creation  of  nature  and  prior  to  the  individual  is  that  the  individual, 
when  isolated,  is  not  self-sufficing;  and  therefore  he  is  like  a  part 
in  relation  to  the  whole.  But  he  who  is  unable  to  live  in  society, 
or  who  has  no  need  because  he  is  sufficient  for  himself,  must 
be  either  a  beast  or  a  god:  he  is  no  part  of  a  state.  A  social 
instinct  is  implanted  in  all  men  by  nature,  and  yet  he  who  first 
founded  the  state  was  the  greatest  of  benefactors.  For  man, 
when  perfected,  is  the  best  of  animals,  but,  when  separated  from 
law  and  justice,  he  is  the  worst  of  all ;  since  armed  injustice  is  the 
more  dangerous,  and  he  is  equipped  at  birth  with  the  arms  of 


58  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

intelligence  and  with  moral  qualities  which  he  may  use  for  the 
worst  ends.  Wherefore,  if  he  have  not  virtue,  he  is  the  most 
unholy  and  the  most  savage  of  animals,  and  the  most  full  of  lust 
and  gluttony.  But  justice  is  the  bond  of  men  in  states,  and  the 
administration  of  justice,  which  is  the  determination  of  what  is 
just,  is  the  principle  of  order  in  political  society. 

Seeing  then  that  the  state  is  made  up  of  households,  before 
speaking  of  the  state,  we  must  speak  of  the  management  of  the 
household.  The  parts  of  the  household  are  the  persons  who  com- 
pose it,  and  a  complete  household  consists  of  slaves  and  freemen. 
Now  we  should  begin  by  examining  everything  in  its  least  elements; 
and  the  first  and  least  parts  of  a  family  are  master  and  slave,  hus- 
band and  wife,  father  and  children.  We  have  therefore  to  consider 
what  each  of  these  three  relations  is  and  ought  to  be:  I  mean  the 
relation  of  master  and  servant,  of  husband  and  wife,  and  thirdly 
of  parent  and  child.  And  there  is  another  element  of  a  household, 
the  so-called  art  of  money-making,  which,  according  to  some,  is 
identical  with  household  management,  according  to  others,  a 
principal  part  of  it;  the  nature  of  this  art  will  also  have  to  be  con- 
sidered by  us. 

He  who  is  by  nature  not  his  own  but  another's  and  yet  a  man,  is 
by  nature  a  slave;  and  he  may  be  said  to  belong  to  another  who, 
being  a  human  being,  is  also  a  possession.  And  a  possession  may 
be  defined  as  an  instrument  of  action,  separable  from  the  possessor. 

But  is  there  any  one  thus  intended  by  nature  to  be  a  slave,  and 
for  whom  such  a  condition  is  expedient  and  right,  or  rather  is 
not  all  slavery  a  violation  of  nature? 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  answering  this  question,  on  grounds 
both  of  reason  and  of  fact.  For  that  some  should  rule,  and  others 
be  ruled  is  a  thing,  not  only  necessary,  but  expedient;  from  the 
hour  of  their  birth,  some  are  marked  out  for  subjection,  others  for 
rule. 

And  whereas  there  are  many  kinds  both  of  rulers  and  subjects, 
that  rule  is  the  better  which  is  exercised  over  better  subjects — 
for  example,  to  rule  over  men  is  better  than  to  rule  over  wild 
beasts.  The  work  is  better  which  is  executed  by  better  workmen; 
and  where  one  man  rules  and  another  is  ruled,  they  may  be  said 
to  have  a  work.  In  all  things  which  form  a  composite  whole  and 
which  are  made  up  of  parts,  whether  continuous  or  discrete,  a 
distinction  between  the  ruling  and  the  subject  element  comes  to 
light.  Such  a  duality  exists  in  living  creatures,  but  not  in  them 
only;  it  originates  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe;  even  in 


ARISTOTLE  59 

things  which  have  no  life,  there  is  a  ruling  principle,  as  in  musical 
harmony.  But  we  are  wandering  from  the  subject.  We  will, 
therefore,  restrict  ourselves  to  the  living  creature  which,  in  the 
first  place,  consists  of  soul  and  body:  and  of  these  two,  the  one 
is  by  nature  the  ruler,  and  the  other  the  subject.  But  then  we 
must  look  for  the  intentions  of  nature  in  things  which  retain  their 
nature,  and  not  in  things  which  are  corrupted.  And  therefore  we 
must  study  the  man  who  is  in  the  most  perfect  state  both  of  body 
and  soul,  for  in  him  we  shall  see  the  true  relation  of  the  two;  al- 
though in  bad  or  corrupted  natures  the  body  will  often  appear  to 
rule  over  the  soul,  because  they  are  in  an  evil  and  unnatural 
condition.  First  then  we  may  observe  in  living  creatures  both  a 
despotical  and  a  constitutional  rule;  for  the  soul  rules  the  body 
with  a  despotical  rule,  whereas  the  intellect  rules  the  appetites 
with  a  constitutional  and  royal  rule.  And  it  is  clear  that  the  rule 
of  the  soul  over  the  body,  and  of  the  mind  and  the  rational  element 
over  the  passionate  is  natural  and  expedient ;  whereas  the  equality 
of  the  two  or  the  rule  of  the  inferior  is  always  hurtful.  The  same 
holds  good  of  animals  as  well  as  of  men ;  for  tame  animals  have  a 
better  nature  than  wild,  and  all  tame  animals  are  better  off  when 
they  are  ruled  by  man;  for  then  they  are  preserved.  Again,  the 
male  is  by  nature  superior,  and  the  female  inferior;  and  the  one 
rules,  and  the  other  is  ruled;  this  principle,  of  necessity,  extends  to 
all  mankind.  Where  then  there  is  such  a  difference  as  that  be- 
tween soul  and  body,  or  between  men  and  animals  (as  in  the  case 
of  those  whose  business  is  to  use  their  body,  and  who  can  do  noth- 
ing better),  the  lower  sort  are  by  nature  slaves,  and  it  is  better  for 
them  as  for  all  inferiors  that  they  should  be  under  the  rule  of  a 
master.  For  he  who  can  be,  and  therefore  is  another's,  and  he  who 
participates  in  reason  enough  to  apprehend,  but  not  to  have,  rea- 
son, is  a  slave  by  nature.  Whereas  the  lower  animals  cannot  even 
apprehend  reason;  they  obey  their  instincts.  And  indeed  the 
use  made  of  slaves  and  of  tame  animals  is  not  very  different; 
for  both  with  their  bodies  minister  to  the  needs  of  life.  Nature 
would  like  to  distinguish  between  the  bodies  of  freemen  and  slaves, 
making  the  one  strong  for  servile  labor,  the  other  upright,  and 
although  useless  for  such  services,  useful  for  political  life  in  the 
arts  both  of  war  and  peace.  But  this  does  not  hold  universally: 
for  some  slaves  have  the  souls  and  others  have  the  bodies  of  free- 
men. And  doubtless  if  men  differed  from  one  another  in  the  mere 
forms  of  their  bodies  as  much  as  the  statues  of  the  gods  do  from 
men,  all  would  acknowledge  that  the  inferior  class  should  be 
slaves  of  the  superior.  And  if  there  is  a  difference  in  the  body, 


•> 

T 


60  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

how  much  more  in  the  soul?  but  the  beauty  of  the  body  is  seen, 
whereas  the  beauty  of  the  soul  is  not  seen.  It  is  clear,  then,  that 
some  men  are  by  nature  free,  and  others  slaves,  and  that  for  these 
latter  slavery  is  both  expedient  and  right. 

But  a  state  exists  for  the  sake  of  a  good  life,  and  not  for  the 
sake  of  life  only:  if  life  only  were  the  object,  slaves  and  brute 
animals  might  form  a  state,  but  they  cannot,  for  they  have  no 
share  in  happiness  or  in  a  life  of  free  choice.  Nor  does  a  state 
exist  for  the  sake  of  alliance  and  security  from  injustice,  nor  yet 
for  the  sake  of  exchange  and  mutual  intercourse;  for  then  the  Tyr- 
rhenians and  the  Carthagenians,  and  all  who  have  commercial 
treaties  with  one  another,  would  be  the  citizens  of  one  state. 
True,  they  have  arrangements  about  imports,  and  engagements 
that  they  will  do  no  wrong  to  one  another,  and  written  articles 
of  alliance.  But  there  are  no  magistracies  common  to  the  contract- 
ing parties  who  will  enforce  their  engagements;  different  states 
have  each  their  own  magistracies.  Nor  does  one  state  take  care 
that  the  citizens  of  the  other  are  such  as  they  ought  to  be,  nor 
see  that  those  who  come  under  the  terms  of  the  treaty  do  no 
wrong  or  wickedness  at  all,  but  only  that  they  do  no  injustice  to 
one  another.  Whereas,  those  who  care  for  good  government  take 
into  consideration  [the  larger  question  of]  virtue  and  vice  in  states. 
Whence  it  may  be  further  inferred  that  virtue  must  be  the  serious 
care  of  a  state  which  truly  deserves  the  name:  for  [without  this 
ethical  end]  the  community  becomes  a  mere  alliance  which  differs 
only  in  place  from  alliances  of  which  the  members  live  apart; 
and  law  is  only  a  convention,  "a  surety  to  one  another  of  justice," 
as  the  sophist  Lycophron  says,  and  has  no  real  power  to  make  the 
citizens  good  and  just. 

This  is  obvious;  for  suppose  distinct  places,  such  as  Corinth  and 
Megara,  to  be  united  by  a  wall,  still  they  would  not  be  one  city, 
not  even  if  the  citizens  had  the  right  to  intermarry,  which  is  one 
of  the  rights  peculiarly  characteristic  of  states.  Again,  if  men 
dwelt  at  a  distance  from  one  another,  but  not  so  far  off  as  to  have  no 
intercourse,  and  there  were  laws  among  them  that  they  should 
not  wrong  each  other  in  their  exchanges,  neither  would  this  be  a 
state.  Let  us  suppose  that  one  man  is  a  carpenter,  another  a  hus- 
bandman, another  a  shoemaker,  and  so  on,  and  that  their  number  is 
ten  thousand :  nevertheless,  if  they  have  nothing  in  common  but  ex- 
change, alliance,  and  the  like,  that  would  not  constitute  a  state. 
Why  is  this?  Surely  not  because  they  are  at  a  distance  from  one 
another:  for  even  supposing  that  such  a  community  were  to  meet 


ARISTOTLE  61 

in  one  place,  and  that  each  man  had  a  house  of  his  own,  which  was 
in  a  manner  his  state,  and  that  they  made  alliance  with  one 
another,  but  only  against  evil-doers;  still  an  accurate  thinker 
would  not  deem  this  to  be  a  state,  if  their  intercourse  with  one 
another  was  of  the  same  character  after  as  before  their  union. 
It  is  clear  then  that  a  state  is  not  a  mere  society,  having  a  com- 
mon place,  established  for  the  prevention  of  crime  and  for  the  sake 
of  exchange.  These  are  conditions  without  which  a  state  cannot 
exist;  but  all  of  them  together  do  not  constitute  a  state,  which  is 
a  community  of  well-being  in  families  and  aggregations  of  families, 
for  the  sake  of  a  perfect  and  self-sufficing  life.  Such  a  community 
can  only  be  established  among  those  who  live  in  the  same  place  and 
intermarry.  Hence  arise  in  cities  family  connections,  brother- 
hoods, common  sacrifices,  amusements  which  draw  men  together. 
They  are  created  by  friendship,  for  friendship  is  the  motive  of 
society.  The  end  is  the  good  life,  and  these  are  the  means  towards 
it.  And  the  state  is  the  union  of  families  and  villages  having  for 
an  end  a  perfect  and  self-sufficing  life,  by  which  we  mean  a  happy 
and  honorable  life. 

Our  conclusion,  then,  is  that  political  society  exists  for  the  sake 
of  noble  actions,  and  not  of  mere  companionship.  And  they  who 
contribute  most  to  such  a  society  have  a  greater  share  in  it  than 
those  who  have  the  same  or  a  greater  freedom  or  nobility  of  birth 
but  are  inferior  to  them  in  political  virtue;  or  than  those  who 
exceed  them  in  wealth  but  are  surpassed  by  them  in  virtue. 

2.     The  Definition  of  Citizenship  l 

He  who  would  inquire  into  the  nature  and  various  kinds  of 
government  must  first  of  all  determine  "What  is  a  state?"  At 
present  this  is  a  disputed  question.  Some  say  that  the  state  has 
done  a  certain  act;  others,  no,  not  the  state,  but  the  oligarchy 
or  the  tyrant.  And  the  legislator  or  statesman  is  concerned 
entirely  with  the  state;  a  constitution  or  government  being  an 
arrangement  of  the  inhabitants  of  a  state.  But  a  state  is  com- 
posite, and,  like  any  other  whole,  made  up  of  many  parts; — 
these  are  the  citizens,  who  compose  it.  It  is  evident,  therefore, 
that  we  must  begin  by  asking,  Who  is  the  citizen,  and  what  is 
the  meaning  of  the  term?  For  here  again  there  may  be  a  differ- 
ence of  opinion.  He  who  is  a  citizen  in  a  democracy  will  often  not 
be  a  citizen  in  an  oligarchy.  Leaving  out  of  consideration  those 
who  have  been  made  citizens,  or  who  have  obtained  the  name  of 

1  III,  i,  v  (in  part).    Jowett,  pp.  67-69,  75~76. 


62  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

citizen  in  any  other  accidental  manner,  we  may  say,  first,  that  a 
citizen  is  not  a  citizen  because  he  lives  in  a  certain  place,  for  resi- 
dent aliens  and  slaves  share  in  the  place;  nor  is  he  a  citizen  who 
has  no  legal  right  except  that  of  suing  and  being  sued;  for  this  right 
may  be  enjoyed  under  the  provisions  of  a  treaty.  Even  resident 
aliens  in  many  places  possess  such  rights,  although  in  an  imperfect 
form;  for  they  are  obliged  to  have  a  patron.  Hence  they  do  but 
imperfectly  participate  in  citizenship,  and  we  call  them  citizens 
only  in  a  qualified  sense,  as  we  might  apply  the  term  to  children 
who  are  too  young  to  be  on  the  register,  or  to  old  men  who  have 
been  relieved  from  state  duties.  Of  these  we  do  not  say  simply 
that  they  are  citizens,  but  add  in  the  one  case  that  they  are 
not  of  age,  and  in  the  other,  that  they  are  past  the  age,  or  something 
of  that  sort;  the  precise  expression  is  immaterial,  for  our  meaning 
is  clear.  Similar  difficulties  to  those  which  I  have  mentioned  may 
be  raised  and  answered  about  deprived  citizens  and  about  exiles. 
But  the  citizen,  whom  we  are  seeking  to  define,  is  a  citizen  in  the 
strictest  sense,  against  whom  no  such  exception  can  be  taken,  and 
his  special  characteristic  is  that  he  shares  in  the  administration  of 
justice,  and  in  offices.  Now  of  offices  some  have  a  limit  of  time, 
and  the  same  persons  are  not  allowed  to  hold  them  twice,  or  can 
only  hold  them  after  a  fixed  interval ;  others  have  no  limit  of  time, 
— for  example,  the  office  of  dicast  or  ecclesiast.1  It  may,  indeed, 
be  argued  that  these  are  not  magistrates  at  all,  and  that  their  func- 
tions give  them  no  share  in  the  government.  But  surely  it  is  ri- 
diculous to  say  that  those  who  have  the  supreme  power  do  not 
govern.  Not  to  dwell  further  upon  this,  which  is  a  purely  verbal 
question,  what  we  want  is  a  common  term  including  both  dicast 
and  ecclesiast.  Let  us,  for  the  sake  of  distinction,  call  it ' '  indefinite 
office,"  and  we  will  assume  that  those  who  share  in  such  office  are 
citizens.  This  is  the  most  comprehensive  definition  of  a  citizen, 
and  best  suits  all  those  who  are  generally  so  called. 

But  we  must  not  forget  that  things  of  which  the  underlying 
notions  differ  in  kind,  one  of  them  being  first,  another  second,  an- 
other third,  have,  when  regarded  in  this  relation,  nothing,  or 
hardly  anything,  worth  mentioning  in  common.  Now  we  see  that 
governments  differ  in  kind,  and  that  some  of  them  are  prior  and 
that  others  are  posterior;  those  which  are  faulty  or  perverted  are 
necessarily  posterior  to  those  which  are  perfect.  (What  we  mean 
by  perversion  will  be  hereafter  explained).  The  citizen  then  of 
necessity  differs  under  each  form  of  government;  and  our  defini- 

1  "Dicast"  =  juryman  and  judge  in  one:  "ecclesiast"  =  member  of  the  ecclesia 
or  assembly  of  the  citizens. — J. 


ARISTOTLE  63 

tion  is  best  adapted  to  the  citizen  of  a  democracy;  but  not  neces- 
sarily to  other  states.  For  in  some  states  the  people  are  not 
acknowledged,  nor  have  they  any  regular  assembly,  but  only 
extraordinary  ones;  and  suits  are  distributed  in  turn  among  the 
magistrates.  At  Lacedaemon,  for  instance,  the  Ephors  determine 
suits  about  contracts,  which  they  distribute  among  themselves, 
while  the  elders  are  judges  of  homicide,  and  other  causes  are  de- 
cided by  other  magistrates.  A  similar  principle  prevails  at 
Carthage;  there  certain  magistrates  decide  all  causes.  We  may, 
indeed,  modify  our  definition  of  the  citizens  so  as  to  include  these 
states.  In  other  states  it  is  the  holder  of  a  definite,  not  of  an 
indefinite  office,  who  legislates  and  judges,  and  to  some  or  all  such 
holders  of  definite  offices  is  reserved  the  right  of  deliberating  or 
judging  about  some  things  or  about  all  things.  The  conception  of 
the  citizen  now  begins  to  clear  up. 

He  who  has  the  power  to  take  part  in  the  deliberative  or  judicial 
administration  of  any  state  is  said  by  us  to  be  a  citizen  of  that 
state;  and  speaking  generally,  a  state  is  a  body  of  citizens  sufficing 
for  the  purposes  of  life. 

There  still  remains  one  more  question  about  the  citizen:  Is 
he  only  a  true  citizen  who  has  a  share  of  office,  or  is  the  mechanic 
to  be  included?  If  they  who  hold  no  office  are  to  be  deemed  citi- 
zens, not  every  citizen  can  have  this  virtue  of  ruling  and  obeying 
which  makes  a  citizen.  And  if  none  of  the  lower  class  are  citizens, 
in  which  part  of  the  state  are  they  to  be  placed?  For  they  are 
not  resident  aliens,  and  they  are  not  foreigners.  To  this  objec- 
tion may  we  not  reply,  that  there  is  no  more  absurdity  in  exclud- 
ing them  than  in  excluding  slaves  and  freedmen  from  any  of  the 
above-mentioned  classes?  It  must  be  admitted  that  we  cannot 
consider  all  those  to  be  citizens  who  are  necessary  to  the  existence 
of  the  state;  for  example,  children  are  not  citizens  equally  with 
grown-up  men,  who  are  citizens  absolutely,  but  children,  not  being 
grown  up,  are  only  citizens  in  a  qualified  sense.  Doubtless  in  ancient 
times,  and  among  some  nations,  the  artisan  class  were  slaves  or 
foreigners,  and  therefore  the  majority  of  them  are  so  now.  The 
best  form  of  state  will  not  admit  them  to  citizenship;  but  if  they 
are  admitted,  then  our  definition  of  the  virtue  of  a  citizen  will 
apply  to  some  citizens  and  freemen  only,  and  not  to  those  who 
work  for  their  living.  The  latter  class,  to  whom  toil  is  a  necessity, 
are  either  slaves  who  minister  to  the  wants  of  individuals,  or 
mechanics  and  laborers  who  are  the  servants  of  the  communitv. 


64  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

3.     Sovereignty l 

A  parallel  question  is  raised  respecting  the  state  whether  a 
certain  act  is  or  is  not  an  act  of  the  state;  for  example,  in  the  transi- 
tion from  an  oligarchy  or  a  tyranny  to  a  democracy.  In  such 
cases  persons  refuse  to  fulfil  their  contracts  or  any  other  obliga- 
tions, on  the  ground  that  the  tyrant,  and  not  the  state,  contracted 
them;  they  argue  that  some  constitutions  are  established  by  force, 
and  not  for  the  sake  of  the  common  good.  But  this  would  apply 
equally  to  democracies,  for  they  too  may  be  founded  on  violence, 
and  then  the  acts  of  the  democracy  will  be  neither  more  nor  less 
legitimate  than  those  of  an  oligarchy  or  of  a  tyranny.  This 
question  runs  up  into  another: — when  shall  we  say  that  the  state 
is  the  same,  and  when  different?  It  would  be  a  very  superficial 
view  which  considered  only  the  place  and  the  inhabitants;  for 
the  soil  and  the  population  may  be  separated,  and  some  of  the 
inhabitants  may  live  in  one  place  and  some  in  another.  This, 
however,  is  not  a  very  serious  difficulty;  we  need  only  remark 
that  the  word  " state"  is  ambiguous,  meaning  both  state  and  city. 

It  is  further  asked:  When  are  men,  living  in  the  same  place, 
to  be  regarded  as  a  single  city — what  is  the  limit?  Certainly  not 
the  wall  of  the  city,  for  you  might  surround  all  Peloponnesus  with 
a  wall.  But  a  city,  having  such  vast  circuit,  would  contain  a 
nation  rather  than  a  state,  like  Babylon,  which,  as  they  say,  had 
been  taken  for  three  days  before  some  part  of  the  inhabitants 
became  aware  of  the  fact.  This  difficulty  may,  however,  with 
advantage  be  deferred  to  another  occasion;  the  statesman  has  to 
consider  the  size  of  the  state,  and  whether  it  should  consist  of 
more  than  one  nation  or  not. 

Again,  shall  we  say  that  while  the  race  of  inhabitants,  as  well 
as  their  place  of  abode,  remain  the  same,  the  city  is  also  the  same, 
although  the  citizens  are  always  dying  and  being  born,  as  we  call 
rivers  and  fountains  the  same,  although  the  water  is  always  flowing 
away  and  coming  again?  Or  shall  we  say  that  the  generations 
of  men,  like  the  rivers,  are  the  same,  but  that  the  state  changes? 
For,  since  the  state  is  a  community  and  a  community  is  made  up 
of  citizens,  when  the  form  of  the  government  changes  and  becomes 
different,  then  it  may  be  supposed  that  the  state  is  no  longer  the 
same,  just  as  a  tragic  differs  from  a  comic  chorus,  although  the 
members  of  both  may  be  identical.  And  in  this  manner  we  speak 
of  every  union  or  composition  of  elements,  when  the  form  of  their 
composition  alters;  for  example,  harmony  of  the  same  sounds 

1  III,  iii,  x-xii,  xiii  (in  part).    Jowett,  pp.  70-72,  84-93. 


ARISTOTLE  65 

is  said  to  be  different,  accordingly  as  the  Dorian  or  the  Phrygian 
mode  is  employed.  And  if  this  is  true  it  is  evident  that  the  same- 
ness of  the/state  consists  chiefly  in  the  sameness  of  the  constitu- 
tion, and  may  be  called  or  not  called  by  the  same  name,  whether 
the  inhabitants  are  the  same  or  entirely  different.  It  is  quite 
another  question,  whether  a  state  ought  or  ought  not  to  fulfil 
engagements  when  the  form  of  government  changes. 

There  is  also  a  doubt  as  to  what  is  to  be  the  supreme  forever  in 
the  state: — Is  it  the  multitude?  Or  the  wealthy?  Or  the  good? 
Or  the  one  best  man?  Or  a  tyrant?  Any  of  these  alternatives 
seems  to  involve  disagreeable  consequences.  If  the  poor,  for 
example,  because  they  are  more  in  number,  divide  among  them- 
selves the  property  of  the  rich, — is  not  this  unjust?  No,  by  heaven 
(will  be  the  reply),  for  the  lawful  authority  willed  it.  But  if 
this  is  not  injustice,  pray  what  is?  Again,  when  [in  the  first  divi- 
sion] all  has  been  taken,  and  the  majority  divide  anew  the  property 
of  the  minority,  is  it  not  evident,  if  this  goes  on,  that  they  will 
ruin  the  state?  Yet  surely,  virtue  is  not  the  ruin  of  those  who 
possess  her,  nor  is  justice  destructive  of  a  state ;  and  therefore  this 
law  of  confiscation  clearly  cannot  be  just.  If  it  were,  all  the  acts 
of  a  tyrant  must  of  necessity  be  just ;  for  he  only  coerces  other  men 
by  superior  power,  just  as  the  multitude  coerce  the  rich.  But  is 
it  just  then  that  the  few  and  the  wealthy  should  be  the  rulers? 
And  what  if  they,  in  like  manner,  rob  and  plunder  the  people, — 
is  this  just?  If  so,  the  other  case  [i.e.  the  case  of  the  majority 
plundering  the  minority]  will  likewise  be  just.  But  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  all  these  things  are  wrong  and  unjust. 

Then  ought  the  good  to  rule  and  have  supreme  power?  But 
in  that  case  everybody  else,  being  excluded  from  power,  will 
be  dishonored.  For  the  offices  of  a  state  are  posts  of  honor;  and 
if  one  set  of  men  always  hold  them,  the  rest  must  be  deprived  of 
them.  Then  will  it  be  well  that  the  one  best  man  should  rule? 
Nay,  that  is  still  more  oligarchical,  for  the  number  of  those  who 
are  dishonored  is  thereby  increased.  Some  one  may  say  that 
it  is  bad  for  a  man,  subject  as  he  is  to  all  the  accidents  of  human 
passion,  to  have  the  supreme  power,  rather  than  the  law.  But 
what  if  the  law  itself  be  democratical  or  oligarchical,  how  will  that 
help  us  out  of  our  difficulties?  Not  at  all;  the  same  consequences 
will  follow. 

|  \  Most  of  these  questions  may  be  reserved  for  another  occasion. 
The  principle  that  the  multitude  ought  to  be  supreme  rather  than 
the  few  best  is  capable  of  a  satisfactory  explanation,  and,  though 


66  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

not  free  from  difficulty,  yet  seems  to  contain  an  element  of  truth. 
For  the  many,  of  whom  each  individual  is  but  an  ordinary  person, 
when  they  meet  together  may  very  likely  be  better  than  the  few 
good,  if  regarded  not  individually  but  collectively,  just  as  a  feast 
to  which  many  contribute  is  better  than  a  dinner  provided  out 
of  a  single  purse.  For  each  individual  among  the  many  has  a 
share  of  virtue  and  prudence,  and  when  they  meet  together  they 
become  in  a  manner  one  man,  who  has  many  feet,  and  hands,  and 
senses;  that  is  a  figure  of  their  mind  and  disposition.  Hence  the 
many  are  better  judges  than  a  single  man  of  music  and  poetry; 
for  some  understand  one  part,  and  some  another,  and  among  them, 
they  understand  the  whole.  There  is  a  similar  combination  of 
qualities  in  good  men,  who  differ  from  any  individual  of  the  many, 
as  the  beautiful  are  said  to  differ  from  those  who  are  not  beautiful, 
and  works  of  art  from  realities,  because  in  them  the  scattered 
elements  are  combined,  although,  if  taken  separately,  the  eye  of  one 
person  or  some^other  feature  in  another  person  would  be  fairer  than 
in  the  picture!  j  Whether  this  principle  can  apply  to  every  democ- 
racy, and  to  a!B  bodies  of  men,  is  not  clear.  Or  rather,  by  heaven, 
in  some  cases  it  is  impossible  of  application ;  for  the  argument  would 
equally  hold  about  brutes;  and  wherein,  it  will  be  asked,  do  some 
men  differ  from  brutes?  But  there  may  be  bodies  of  men  about 
whom  our  statement  is  nevertheless  true.  And  if  so,  the  difficulty 
which  has  been  already  raised,  and  also  another  which  is  akin  to 
it — viz.  what  power  should  be  assigned  to  the  mass  of  freemen  and 
citizens,  who  are  not  rich  and  have  no  personal  merit — are  both 
solved.  There  is  still  a  danger  in  allowing  them  to  share  the  great 
offices  of  state,  for  their  folly  will  lead  them  into  error,  and  their 
dishonesty  into  crime.  But  there  is  a  danger  also  in  not  letting 
them  share,  for  a  state  in  which  many  poor  men  are  excluded  from 
office  will  necessarily  be  full  of  enemies.  The  only  way  of  escape 
is  to  assign  to  them  some  deliberative  and  judicial  functions.  For 
this  reason  Solon  and  certain  other  legislators  give  them  the  power 
of  electing  to  offices,  and  of  calling  the  magistrates  to  account, 
but  they  do  not  allow  them  to  hold  office  singly.  -When  they  meet 
together  their  perceptions  are  quite  good  enough,  and  combined 
with  the  better  class  they  are  useful  to  the  state  (just  as  impure 
food  when  mixed  with  what  is  pure  sometimes  makes  the  entire 
mass  more  wholesome  than  a  small  quantity  of  the  pure  would 
be),  but  each  individual,  left  to  himself,  forms  an  imperfect 
judgment.  On  the  other  hand,  the  popular  form  of  government 
involves  certain  difficulties.  In  the  first  place,  it  might  be  objected 
that  he  who  can  judge  of  the  healing  of  a  sick  man  would  be  one 


ARISTOTLE  67 

who  could  himself  heal  his  disease,  and  make  him  whole — that 
is,  in  other  words,  the  physician;  and  so  in  all  professions  and  arts. 
As,  then,  the  physician  ought  to  be  called  to  account  by  physicians, 
so  ought  men  in  general  to  be  called  to  account  by  their  peers. 
But  physicians  are  of  three  kinds: — there  is  the  apothecary,  and 
there  is  the  physician  of  the  higher  class,  and  thirdly  the  intelligent 
man  who  has  studied  the  art:  in  all  arts  there  is  such  a  class; 
and  we  attribute  the  power  of  judging  to  them  quite  as  much  as 
to  professors  of  the  art.  Now,  does  not  the  same  principle  apply 
to  elections?  For  a  right  election  can  only  be  made  by  those  who 
have  knowledge;  a  geometrician,  for  example,  will  choose  rightly 
in  matters  of  geometry,  or  a  pilot  in  matters  of  steering;  and, 
even  if  there  be  some  occupations  and  arts  witii  which  private 
persons  are  familiar,  they  certainly  cannot  judge  better  than  those 
who  know.  So  that,  according  to  this  argument,  r.either  the  elec- 
tion of  magistrates,  nor  the  calling  of  them  to  account,  should  be 
intrusted  to  the  many.  Yet  possibly  these  objections  are  to  a 
great  extent  met  by  our  old  answer,  that  if  the  people  are  not  utter- 
ly degraded,  although  individually  they  may  be  wors*  judges  than 
those  who  have  special  knowledge — as  a  body  they  a*e  as  good  or 
better.  Moreover,  there  are  some  artists  whose  works  are  judged 
of  solely,  or  in  the  best  manner,  not  by  themselves,  tut  by  those 
who  do  not  possess  the  art;  for  example,  the  knowledge  of  the 
house  is  not  limited  to  the  builder  only;  the  user,  or,  in  o-,her  words, 
the  master,  of  the  house  will  even  be  a  better  judge  thai  the  buil- 
der, just  as  the  pilot  will  judge  better  of  a  rudder  thai  the  car- 
penter, and  the  guest  will  judge  better  of  a  feast  than  the  cook. 

This  difficulty  seems  now  to  be  sufficiently  answeed,  but 
there  is  another  akin  to  it.  That  inferior  persons  shotld  have 
authority  in  greater  matters  than  the  good  would  appear  to  be  a 
strange  thing,  yet  the  election  and  calling  to  account  of  themagis- 
trates  is  the  greatest  of  all.  And  these,  as  I  was  sayirg,  are 
functions  which  in  some  states  are  assigned  to  the  people,  br  the 
assembly  is  supreme  in  all  such  matters.  Yet  persons  of  an;  age, 
and  having  but  a  small  property  qualification,  sit  in  the  assenbly 
and  deliberate  and  judge,  although  for  the  great  officers  of  sate, 
such  as  controllers  and  generals,  a  high  qualification  is  requred. 
This  difficulty  may  be  solved  in  the  same  manner  as  the  precedng, 
and  the  present  practice  of  democracies  may  be  really  defensille. 
For  the  power  does  not  reside  in  the  dicast,  or  senator,  or  ecclesiat, 
but  in  the  court  and  the  senate,  and  the  assembly,  of  which  inci- 
vidual  senators,  or  ecclesiasts,  or  dicasts,  are  only  parts  or  member^ 
and  for  this  reason  the  many  may  claim  to  have  a  higher  authority 


68  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

than  the  few;  for  the  people,  and  the  senate,  and  the  courts  consist 
of  many  persons,  and  their  property  collectively  is  greater  than 
the  property  of  one  or  of  a  few  individuals  holding  great  offices. 
But  enough  of  this. 

p  The  discussion  of  the  first  question  shows  nothing  so  clearly 
as  that  laws,  when  good,  should  be  supreme;  and  that  the  magis- 
trate or  magistrates  should  regulate  those  matters  only  on  which 
the  laws  are  unable  to  speak  with  precision  owing  to  the  difficulty 
of  any  general  principle  embracing  all  particulars.  But  what  are 
good  laws  has  not  yet  been  clearly  explained;  the  old  difficulty 
remains.  The  goodness  or  badness,  justice  or  injustice,  of  laws 
is  of  necessity  relative  to  the  constitutions  of  states.  But  if  so, 
true  forms  of  government  will  of  necessity  have  just  laws,  and 
perverted  forms  of  government  will  have  unjust  laws. 

In  all  sciences  and  arts  the  end  is  a  good,  and  especially  and 
above  all  in  the  highest  of  all — this  is  the  political  science  of  which 
the  good  is  justice,  in  other  words,  the  common  interest.  All 
men  think  justice  to  be  a  sort  of  equality;  and  to  a  certain  extent 
they  agree  ill  the  philosophical  distinctions  which  have  been  laid 
down  by  us  about  Ethics.  For  they  admit  that  justice  is  a  thing 
having  relation  to  persons,  and  that  equals  ought  to  have  equality. 
But  there  s/ill  remains  a  question;  equality  or  inequality  of  what? 
here  is  a  d/mculty  which  the  political  philosopher  has  to  resolve. 
For  very  likely  some  persons  will  say  that  offices  of  state  ought  to 
be  uneqt^lly  distributed  according  to  superior  excellence,  in 
whatever tespect,  of  the  citizen,  although  there  is  no  other  differ- 
ence betyeen  him  and  the  rest  of  the  community;  for  that  those 
who  differ  in  any  one  respect  have  different  rights  and  claims.  But, 
surely,  f  this  is  true,  the  complexion  or  height  of  a  man,  or  any 
other  advantage,  will  be  a  reason  for  his  obtaining  a  greater  share 
ical  rights.  The  error  here  lies  upon  the  surface,  and  may 
;trated  from  the  other  arts  and  sciences.  When  a  number 
-players  are  equal  in  their  art,  there  is  no  reason  why  those 
who  are  better  born  should  have  better  flutes  given  to 
then/;  for  they  will  not  play  any  better  on  the  flute,  and  the  su- 
(r  instrument  should  be  reserved  for  him  who  is  the  superior 
artiit.  If  what  I  am  saying  is  still  obscure,  it  will  be  made  clearer 
as  he  proceed.  For  if  there  were  a  superior  flute-player  who  was 
fa/inferior  in  birth  and  beauty,  although  either  of  these  may  be  a 
iter  good  than  the  art  of  flute-playing,  and  persons  gifted  with 
tj(ese  qualities  may  excel  the  flute-player  in  a  greater  ratio  than 
excels  them  in  his  art,  still  he  ought  to  have  the  best  flutes 
;iven  to  him,  unless  the  advantages  of  wealth  and  birth  contribute 


ARISTOTLE  69 

to  excellence  in  flute-playing,  which  they  do  not.  Moreover  upon 
this  principle  any  good  may  be  compared  with  any  other.  For 
if  a  given  height,  then  height  in  general  may  be  measured  either 
against  height  or  against  freedom.  Thus  if  A  excels  in  height  more 
than  B  in  virtue,  and  height  in  general  is  more  excellent  than  vir- 
tue, all  things  will  be  commensurable  [which  is  absurd];  for  if  a 
certain  magnitude  is  greater  than  some  other,  it  is  clear  that  some 
other  will  be  equal.  But  since  no  such  comparison  can  be  made, 
it  is  evident  that  there  is  good  reason  why  in  politics  men  do  not 
ground  their  claim  to  office  on  every  sort  of  inequality  any  more 
than  in  the  arts.  For  if  some  be  slow,  and  others  swift,  that  is 
no  reason  why  the  one  should  have  little  and  the  others  much;  it 
is  in  gymnastic  contests  that  such  excellence  is  rewarded.  Where- 
as the  rival  claims  of  candidates  for  office  can  only  be  based  on 
the  possession  of  elements  which  enter  into  the  composition  of 
a  state.  And  therefore  the  noble,  or  free-born,  or  rich,  may 
with  good  reason  claim  office;  for  holders  of  offices  must  be  free- 
men and  tax-payers :  a  state  can  be  no  more  composed  entirely  of 
poor  men  than  entirely  of  slaves.  But  if  wealth  and  freedom 
are  necessary  elements,  justice  and  valor  are  equally  sc ;  for  without 
the  former  a  state  cannot  exist  at  all,  without  the  latter  not  well. 
If  the  existence  of  the  state  is  alone  to  be  considered,  then  it 
would  seem  that  all,  or  some  at  least,  of  these  claims  are  just; 
but,  if  we  take  into  account  a  good  life,  as  I  have  already  said, 
education  and  virtue  have  superior  claims.  As,  however,  those 
who  are  equal  in  one  thing  ought  not  to  be  equal  in  all,  nor  those 
who  are  unequal  in  one  thing  to  be  unequal  in  all,  it  is  certain  that 
all  forms  of  government  which  rest  on  either  of  these  principles 
are  perversions.  All  men  have  a  claim  in  a  certain  sense,  as  I 
have  already  admitted,  but  they  have  not  an  absolute  claim.  The 
rich  claim  because  they  have  a  greater  share  in  the  land,  and  land 
is  the  common  element  of  the  state;  also  they  are  generally  more 
trustworthy  in  contracts.  The  free  claim  under  the  same  title 
as  the  noble;  for  they  are  nearly  akin.  And  the  noble  are  citizens 
in  a  truer  sense  than  the  ignoble,  since  good  birth  is  always  valued 
in  a  man's  own  home  and  country.  Another  reason  is,  that  those 
who  are  sprung  from  better  ancestors  are  likely  to  be  better  men, 
for  nobility  is  excellence  of  race.  Virtue,  too,  may  be  truly  said  to 
have  a  claim,  for  justice  has  been  acknowledged  by  us  to  be  a  so?ial 
virtue,  and  it  implies  all  others.  Again,  the  many  may  urge  their 
claim  against  the  few;  for,  when  taken  collectively,  and  compared 
with  the  few,  they  are  stronger  and  richer  and  better.  But,  what 
if  the  good,  the  rich,  the  noble  and  the  other  classes  who  make  up 


70  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

a  state,  are  all  living  together  in  the  same  city,  will  there,  or  will 
there  not,  be  any  doubt  who  shall  rule? — No  doubt  at  all  in  de- 
termining who  ought  to  rule  in  each  of  the  above-mentioned 
forms  of  government.  For  states  are  characterized  by  differences 
in  their  governing  bodies — one  of  them  has  a  government  of  the 
rich,  another  of  the  virtuous,  and  so  on.  But  a  difficulty  arises 
when  all  these  elements  coexist.  How  are  we  to  decide?  Suppose 
the  virtuous  to  be  very  few  in  number:  may  we  consider  their 
numbers  in  relation  to  their  duties,  and  ask  whether  they  are 
enough  to  administer  the  state,  or  must  they  be  so  many  as  will 
make  up  a  state?  Objections  may  be  urged  against  all  the  aspir- 
ants to  political  power.  For  those  who  found  their  claims  on 
wealth  or  family  have  no  basis  of  justice;  on  this  principle,  if  any 
one  person  were  richer  than  all  the  rest,  it  is  clear  that  he  ought  to 
be  the  ruler  of  them.  In  like  manner  he  who  is  very  distinguished 
by  his  birth  ought  to  have  the  superiority  over  all  those  who  claim 
on  the  ground  that  they  are  freeborn.  In  an  aristocracy,  or 
government  of  the  best,  a  like  difficulty  occurs  about  virtue;  for 
if  one  citizen  be  better  than  the  other  members  of  the  government, 
however  good  they  may  be,  he  too,  upon  the  same  principle  of 
justice,  should  rule  over  them.  And  if  the  people  are  to  be  supreme 
because  they  are  stronger  than  the  few,  then  if  one  man,  or  more 
than  one,  but  not  a  majority,  is  stronger  than  the  many,  they  ought 
to  rule,  and  not  the  many. 

All  these  considerations  appear  to  show  that  none  of  the  prin- 
ciples on  which  men  claim  to  rule,  and  hold  all  other  men  in  sub- 
jection to  them,  are  strictly  right.  To  those  who  claim  to  be 
masters  of  the  state  on  the  ground  of  their  virtue  or  their  wealth, 
the  many  might  fairly  answer  that  they  themselves  are  often  better 
and  richer  than  the  few — I  do  not  say  individually,  but  collect- 
ively. And  another  ingenious  objection  which  is  sometimes  put 
forward  may  be  met  in  a  similar  manner.  Some  persons  doubt 
whether  the  legislator  who  desires  to  make  the  justest  laws  ought  to 
legislate  with  a  view  to  the  good  of  the  higher  classes  or  of  the 
many,  when  the  case  which  we  have  mentioned  occurs  [i.e.  when 
all  the  elements  coexist].  Now  what  is  just  or  right  is  to  be  inter- 
preted in  the  sense  of  "  what  is  equal";  and  that  which  is  right  in 
the  iense  of  being  equal  is  to  be  considered  with  reference  to  the 
advantage  of  the  state,  and  the  common  good  of  the  citizens. 
An/1  a  citizen  is  one  who  shares  in  governing  and  being  governed. 
HJ6  differs  under  different  forms  of  government,  but  in  the  best 
s^ate  he  is  one  who  is  able  and  willing  to  be  governed  and  to  govern 
yith  a  view  to  the  life  of  virtue. 


ARISTOTLE  71 

If,  however,  there  be  some  one  person,  or  more  than  one,  al- 
though not  enough  to  make  up  the  full  complement  of  a  state, 
whose  virtue  is  so  preeminent  that  the  virtues  or  the  political 
power  of  all  the  rest  admit  of  no  comparison  with  his  or  theirs, 
he  or  they  can  be  no  longer  regarded  as  part  of  a  state ;  for  justice 
will  not  be  done  to  the  superior,  if  he  is  reckoned  only  as  the  equal 
of  those  who  are  so  far  inferior  to  him  in  virtue  and  in  political 
power.  Such  a  one  may  truly  be  deemed  a  god  among  men. 
Hence  we  see  that  legislation  is  necessarily  concerned  only  with 
those  who  are  equal  in  birth  and  in  power;  and  that  for  men  of  pre- 
eminent virtue  there  is  no  law — they  are  themselves  a  law.  Any 
one  would  be  ridiculous  who  attended  to  make  laws  for  them: 
they  would  probably  retort  what,  jwxhe  fable  of  Antisthenes,  the 
lions  said  to  the  hares  ["where  are  your  claws?  "],  when  in  the  coun- 
cil of  the,  beasts  the  latter  began  haranguing  and  claiming  equality 
for  all.  \  *And  for  this  reason  democratic  states  have  instituted 
ostracism;  equality  is  above  all  things  their  aim,  and  therefore 
they  ostracise  and  banish  from  the  city  for  a  time  those  who  seem 
to  predominate  too  much  through  their  wealth,  or  the  number  of 
their  friends,  or  through  any  other  political  influence. 


4.    Forms  of  State  x 

Having  determined  these  questions,  we  have  next  to  consider 
whether  there  is  only  one  form  of  government  or  many,  and  if 
many,  what  they  are,  and  how  many,  and  what  are  the  differences 
between  them. 

A  constitution  is  the  arrangement  of  magistracies  in  a  state, 
especially  of  the  highest  of  all.  The  government  is  everywhere 
sovereign  in  the  state,  and  the  constitution  is  in  fact  the  govern- 
ment. For  example,  in  democracies  the  people  are  supreme,  but 
in  oligarchies,  the  few;  and,  therefore,  we  say  that  these  two  forms 
of  government  are  different:  and  so  in  other  cases. 

First,  let  us  consider  what  is  the  purpose  of  a  state,  and  how 
many  forms  of  government  there  are  by  which  human  society  is 
regulated.  We  have  already  said,  in  the  former  part  of  this  trea- 
tise, when  drawing  a  distinction  between  household-management 
and  the  rule  of  a  master,  that  man  is  by  nature  a  political  animal. 
And  therefore,  men,  even  when  they  do  not  require  one  another's 
help,  desire  to  live  together  all  the  same,  and  are  in  fact  brought 

1III,  vi-yiii,  xiv-xv  (in  part),  xvi-xvii;  IV,  i,  vii-viii,  ix  (in  part),  xi,  xii  (in 
part);  VI,  ii-iii.  Jowett,  pp.  77-81,  95,  97-100,  101-105,  107-109,  120-124, 
126-131,  189-193. 


72  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

together  by  their  common  interests  in  proportion  as  they  severally 
attain  to  any  measure  of  well-being.  This  is  certainly  the  chief 
end,  both  of  individuals  and  of  states.  And  also  for  the  sake  of 
mere  life  (in  which  there  is  possibly  some  noble  element)  mankind 
meet  together  and  maintain  the  political  community,  so  long  as 
the  evils  of  existence  do  not  greatly  overbalance  the  good.  And 
we  all  see  that  men  cling  to  life  even  in  the  midst  of  misfortune, 
seeming  to  find  in  it  a  natural  sweetness  and  happiness. 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  distinguishing  the  various  kinds  of 
authority;  they  have  been  often  defined  already  in  popular  works. 
The  rule  of  a  master,  although  the  slave  by  nature  and  the  master 
by  nature  have  in  reality  the  same  interests,  is  nevertheless  exer- 
cised primarily  with  a  view  to  the  interest  of  the  master,  but 
accidentally  considers  the  slave,  since,  if  the  slave  perish,  the  rule 
of  the  master  perishes  with  him.  On  the  other  hand,  the  govern- 
ment of  a  wife  and  children  and  of  a  household,  which  we  have 
called  household-management,  is  exercised  in  the  first  instance 
for  the  good  of  the  governed  or  for  the  common  good  of  both 
parties,  but  essentially  for  the  good  of  the  governed,  as  we  see  to 
be  the  case  in  medicine,  gymnastics,  and  the  arts  in  general,  which 
are  only  accidentally  concerned  with  the  good  of  the  artists  them- 
selves. (For  there  is  no  reason  why  the  trainer  may  not  sometimes 
practise  gymnastics,  and  the  pilot  is  always  one  of  the  crew) .  The 
trainer  or  the  pilot  considers  the  good  of  those  committed  to  his 
care.  But,  when  he  is  one  of  the  persons  taken  care  of,  he  acci- 
dentally participates  in  the  advantage,  for  the  pilot  is  also  a  sailor, 
and  the  trainer  becomes  one  of  those  in  training.  And  so  in  poli- 
tics: when  the  state  is  framed  upon  the  principle  of  equality  and 
likeness,  the  citizens  think  that  they  ought  to  hold  office  by  turns. 
In  the  order  of  nature  every  one  would  take  his  turn  of  service; 
and  then  again,  somebody  else  would  look  after  his  interest,  just 
as  he,  while  in  office,  had  looked  after  theirs.  But  nowadays, 
for  the  sake  of  the  advantage  which  is  to  be  gained  from  the  public 
revenues  and  from  office,  men  want  to  be  always  in  office.  One 
might  imagine  that  the  rulers,  being  sickly,  were  only  kept  in 
health  while  they  continued  in  office;  in  that  case  we  may  be  sure 
that  they  would  be  hunting  after  places.  The  conclusion  is 
evident:  that  governments,  which  have  a  regard  to  the  common 
interest,  are  constituted  in  accordance  with  strict  principles  of 
justice,  and  are  therefore  true  forms;  but  those  which  regard  only 
the  interest  of  the  rulers  are  all  defective  and  perverted  forms, 
for  they  are  despotic,  whereas  a  state  is  a  community  of  freemen. 

Having  determined  these  points,  we  have  next  to  consider  how 


ARISTOTLE  73 

many  forms  of  government  there  are,  and  what  they  are;  and  in 
the  first  place  what  are  the  true  forms,  for  when  they  are  deter- 
mined the  perversions  of  them  will  at  once  be  apparent.  The 
words  constitution  and  government  have  the  same  meaning,  and 
the  government,  which  is  the  supreme  authority  in  states,  must 
be  in  the  hands  of  one,  or  of  a  few,  or  of  many.  The  true  forms 
of  government,  therefore,  are  those  in  which  the  one,  or  the  few, 
or  the  many,  govern  with  a  view  to  the  common  interest;  but  gov- 
ernments which  rule  with  a  view  to  the  private  interest,  whether 
of  the  one,  or  of  the  few,  or  of  the  many,  are  perversions.  For 
citizens,  if  they  are  truly  citizens,  ought  to  participate  in  the  ad- 
vantages of  a  state.  Of  forms  of  government  in  which  one  rules, 
we  call  that  which  regards  the  common  interests,  kingship  or 
royalty;  that  in  which  more  than  one,  but  not  many,  rule,  aristoc- 
racy, and  it  is  so  called,  either  because  the  rulers  are  the  best  men, 
or~Decause  they  have  at  heart  the  best  interests  of  the  state  and 
of  the  citizens.  But  when  the  citizens  at  large  administer  the  state 
for  the  common  interest,  the  government  is  called  by  the  generic 
name, — a  constitution  [iroAiTeux].  And  there  is  a  reason  for  this  use 
of  language.  One  man  or  a  few  may  excel  in  virtue;  but  of  virtue 
there  are  many  kinds:  and  as  the  number  increases  it  becomes 
more  difficult  for  them  to  attain  perfection  in  every  kind,  though 
they  may  in  military  virtue,  for  this  is  found  in  the  masses.  Hence, 
in  a  constitutional  government  the  fighting-men  have  the  supreme 
power,  and  those  who  possess  arms  are  the  citizens. 

Of  the  above-mentioned  forms,  the  perversions  are  as  follows : — 
of  royalty,  tyranny;  of  aristocracy,  oligarchy;  of  constitutional 
government,  democracy.  For  tyranny  is  a  kind  of  monarchy 
which  has  in  view  the  interest  of  the  monarch  only;  oligarchy  has 
in  view  the  interest  of  the  wealthy;  democracy,  of  the  needy: 
none  of  them  the  common  good  of  all. 

But  there  are  difficulties  about  these  forms  of  government,  and 
it  will  therefore  be  necessary  to  state  a  little  more  at  length  the 
nature  of  each  of  them.  For  he  who  would  make  a  philosophical 
study  of  the  various  sciences,  and  does  not  regard  practice  only, 
ought  not  to  overlook  or  omit  anything,  but  to  set  forth  the  truth 
in  every  particular.  Tyranny,  as  I  was  saying,  is  monarchy 
exercising  the  rule  of  a  master  over  political  society;  oligarchy 
is  when  men  of  property  have  the  government  in  their  hands; 
democracy,  the  opposite,  when  the  indigent,  and  not  the  men  of 
property,  are  the  rulers.  And  here  arises  the  first  of  our  difficul- 
ties, and  it  relates  to  the  definition  just  given.  For  democracy  is 
said  to  be  the  government  of  the  many.  But  what  if  the  many 


74  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

are  men  of  property  and  have  the  power  in  their  hands?  In  like 
manner  oligarchy  is  said  to  be  the  government  of  the  few;  but 
what  if  the  poor  are  fewer  than  the  rich,  and  have  the  power  in 
their  hands  because  they  are  stronger?  In  these  cases  the  dis- 
tinction which  we  have  drawn  between  these  different  forms  of 
government  would  no  longer  hold  good. 

Suppose,  once  more,  that  we  add  wealth  to  the  few  and  poverty 
to  the  many,  and  name  the  governments  accordingly — an  oligarchy 
is  said  to  be  that  in  which  the  few  and  the  wealthy,  and  a  democ- 
racy that  in  which  the  many  and  the  poor  are  the  rulers — there 
will  still  be  a  difficulty.  For,  if  the  only  forms  of  government  are 
the  ones  already  mentioned,  how  shall  we  describe  those  other 
governments  also  just  mentioned  by  us,  in  which  the  rich  are  the 
more  numerous  and  the  poor  are  the  fewer,  and  both  govern  in 
their  respective  states? 

The  argument  seems  to  show  that,  whether  in  oligarchies  or 
in  democracies,  the  number  of  the  governing  body,  whether  the 
greater  number,  as  in  a  democracy,  or  the  smaller  number,  as  in 
an  oligarchy,  is  an  accident  due  to  the  fact  that  the  rich  every- 
where are  few,  and  the  poor  numerous.  But  if  so,  there  is  a  mis- 
apprehension of  the  causes  of  the  difference  between  them.  For 
the  real  difference  between  democracy  and  oligarchy  is  poverty 
and  wealth.  Wherever  men  rule  by  /reason  of  their  wealth, 
whether  they  be  few  or  many,  that  is  an  oligarchy^  and  where  the 
/  poor  rule,  that  is  a  democracy.  ]  But  as  a  fact  the  rich  are  few 
%  and  the  poor  many:  for  few  are  well-to-do,  whereas  freedom  is 
enjoyed  by  all,  and  wealth  and  freedom  are  the  grounds  on  which 
the  oligarchical  and  democratical  parties  respectively  claim  power 
in  the  state. 

Let  us  see  whether  in  order  to  be  well  governed  a  state  or 
country  should  be  under  the  rule  of  a  king  or  under  some  other 
form  of  government;  and  whether  monarchy,  although  good  for 
some,  may  not  be  bad  for  others.  But  first  we  must  determine 
whether  there  is  one  species  of  royalty  or  many.  It  is  easy  to 
see  that  there  are  many,  and  that  the  manner  of  government  is 
not  the  same  in  all  of  them. 

These,  then,  are  the  four  kinds  of  royalty.  First  the  monarchy 
of  the  heroic  ages;  this  was  exercised  over  voluntary  subjects,  but 
limited  to  certain  functions;  the  king  was  a  general  and  a  judge, 
and  had  the  control  of  religion.  The  second  is  that  of  the  bar- 
barians, which  is  an  hereditary  despotic  government  in  accordance 


ARISTOTLE  75 

with  law.  A  third  is  the  power  of  the  so-called  ^Esymnete  or 
Dictator;  this  is  an  elective  tyranny.  The  fourth  is  the  Lace- 
daemonian, which  is  in  fact  a  generalship,  hereditary  and  perpetual. 
These  four  forms  differ  from  one  another  in  the  manner  which  I 
have  described. 

There  is  a  fifth  form  of  kingly  rule  in  which  one  has  the  disposal 
of  all,  just  as  each  tribe  or  each  state  has  the  disposal  of  the  public 
property ;  this  form  corresponds  to  the  control  of  a  household.  For 
as  household  management  is  the  kingly  rule  of  a  house,  so  kingly 
rule  is  the  household  management  of  a  city,  or  of  a  nation,  or  of 
many  nations. 

Of  these  forms  we  need  only  consider  two,  the  Lacedaemonian 
and  the  absolute  royalty;  for  most  of  the  others  lie  in  a  region 
between  them,  having  less  power  than  the  last,  and  more  than  the 
first.  Thus  the  inquiry  is  reduced  to  two  points:  first,  is  it  ad- 
vantageous to  the  state  that  there  should  be  a  perpetual  general, 
and  if  so,  should  the  office  be  confined  to  one  family,  or  open  to 
the  citizens  in  turn?  Secondly,  is  it  well  that  a  single  man  should 
have  the  supreme  power  in  all  things?  The  first  question  falls 
under  the  head  of  laws  rather  than  of  constitutions ;  for  perpetual 
generalship  might  equally  exist  under  any  form  of  government, 
so  that  this  matter  may  be  dismissed  for  the  present.  The  other 
kind  of  royalty  is  a  sort  of  constitution ;  this  we  have  now  to  con- 
sider, and  briefly  to  run  over  the  difficulties  involved  in  it.  We 
will  begin  by  inquiring  whether  it  is  more  advantageous  to  be 
ruled  by  the  best  man  or  by  the  best  laws. 

The  advocates  of  royalty  maintain  that  the  laws  speak  only 
in  general  terms,  and  cannot  provide  for  circumstances;  and 
that  for  any  science  to  abide  by  written  rules  is  absurd.  Even 
in  Egypt  the  physician  is  allowed  to  alter  his  treatment  after 
the  fourth  day,  but  if  sooner,  he  takes  the  risk.  Hence  it 
is  argued  that  a  government  acting  according  to  written  laws 
is  plainly  not  the  best.  Yet  surely  the  ruler  cannot  dispense 
with  the  general  principle  which  exists  in  law;  and  he  is  a  better 
ruler  who  is  free  from  passion  than  he  who  is  passionate. 
Whereas  the  law  is  passionless,  passion  must  ever  sway  the  heart 
of  man. 

Yes,  some  one  will  answer,  but  then  on  the  other  hand  an  indi- 
vidual will  be  better  able  to  advise  in  particular  cases.  [To  whom 
we  in  turn  make  reply:]  A  king  must  legislate,  and  laws  must  be 
passed,  but  these  laws  will  have  no  authority  when  they  miss  the 
mark,  though  in  all  other  cases  retaining  their  authority.  When 
the  law  cannot  determine  a  point  at  all,  or  not  well,  should  the  one 


76  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

best  man  or  should  all  decide?  According  to  our  present  practice 
assemblies  meet,  sit  in  judgment,  deliberate  and  decide,  and  their 
judgments  all  relate  to  individual  cases.  Now  any  member  of 
the  assembly,  taken  separately,  is  certainly  inferior  to  the  wise 
man.  But  the  state  is  made  up  of  many  individuals.  And  as  a 
feast  to  which  all  the  guests  contribute  is  better  than  a  banquet 
furnished  by  a  single  man,  so  a  multitude  is  a  better  judge  of 
many  things  than  any  individual. 

Again,  the  many  are  more  incorruptible  than  the  few;  they  are 
like  the  greater  quantity  of  water  which  is  less  easily  corrupted 
than  a  little.  The  individual  is  liable  to  be  overcome  by  anger 
or  by  some  other  passion,  and  then  his  judgment  is  necessarily 
perverted;  but  it  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  a  great  number  of 
persons  would  all  get  into  a  passion  and  go  wrong  at  the  same 
moment.  Let  us  assume  that  they  are  freemen,  never  acting  in 
violation  of  the  law,  but  filling  up  the  gaps  which  the  law  is 
obliged  to  leave.  Or,  if  such  virtue  is  scarcely  attainable  by  the 
multitude,  we  need  only  suppose  that  the  majority  are  good  men 
and  good  citizens,  and  ask  which  will  be  the  more  incorruptible, 
the  one  good  ruler,  or  the  many  who  are  all  good?  Will  not  the 
many?  But,  you  will  say,  there  may  be  parties  among  them, 
whereas  the  one  man  is  not  divided  against  himself.  To  which  we 
may  answer  that  their  character  is  as  good  as  his.  If  we  call  the 
rule  of  many  men,  who  are  all  of  them  good,  aristocracy,  and  the 
rule  of  one  man  royalty,  then  aristocracy  will  be  better  for  states 
than  royalty,  whether  the  government  is  supported  by  force  or 
not,  provided  only  that  a  number  of  men  equal  in  virtue  can  be 
found. 

At  this  place  in  the  discussion  naturally  follows  the  inquiry 
respecting  the  king  who  acts  solely  according  to  his  own  will; 
he  has  now  to  be  considered.  The  so-called  limited  monarchy, 
or  kingship  according  to  law,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  is  not  a 
distinct  form  of  government,  for  under  all  governments,  as,  for 
example,  in  a  democracy  or  aristocracy,  there  may  be  a  general 
holding  office  for  life,  and  one  person  is  often  made  supreme  over 
the  administration  of  a  state.  A  magistracy  of  this  kind  exists 
at  Epidamnus,  and  also  at  Opus,  but  in  the  latter  city  has  a  more 
limited  power.  Now,  absolute  monarchy,  or  the  arbitrary  rule 
of  a  sovereign  over  all  the  citizens,  in  a  city  which  consists 
of  equals,  is  thought  by  some  to  be  quite  contrary  to  nature; 
it  is  argued  that  those  who  are  by  nature  equals  must  have  the 
same  natural  right  and  worth,  and  that  for  unequals  to  have 


ARISTOTLE  77 

an  equal  share,  or  for  equals  to  have  an  unequal  share,  in  the  offices 
of  state,  is  as  bad  as  for  different  bodily  constitutions  to  have  the 
same  food  and  clothing  or  the  same  different.  Wherefore  it 
is  thought  to  be  just  that  among  equals  every  one  be  ruled  as 
well  as  rule,  and  that  all  should  have  their  turn.  We  thus  arrive 
at  law;  for  an  order  of  succession  implies  law.  ^And  the  rule  of 
the  law  is  preferable  to  that  of  any  individual  On  the  same- 
principle,  even  if  it  be  better  for  certain  individuals  to  govern, 
they  should  be  made  only  guardians  and  ministers  of  the  law.  For 
magistrates  there  must  be, — this  is  admitted;  but  then  men  say 
that  to  give  authority  to  any  one  man  when  all  are  equal  is  unjust. 
There  may  indeed  be  cases  which  the  law  seems  unable  to  deter- 
mine, but  in  such  cases  can  a  man?  Nay,  it  will  be  replied,  the 
law  trains  officers  for  this  express  purpose,  and  appoints  them  to 
determine  matters  which  are  left  undecided  by  it  to  the  best  of 
their  judgment.  Further  it  permits  them  to  make  any  amendment 
of  the  existing  laws  which  experience  suggests.  [But  still  they  are 
only  the  ministers  of  the  law.]  He  who  bids  the  law  rule,  may  be 
deemed  to  bid  God  and  Reason  alone  rule,  but  he  who  bids  man 
rule  adds  an  element  of  the  beast;  for  desire  is  a  wild  beast,  and 
passion  perverts  the  minds  of  rulers,  even  when  they  are  the  best 
of  men.  The  law  is  reason  unaffected  by  desire.  We  are  told 
that  a  patient  should  call  in  a  physician;  he  will  not  get  better  if 
he  is  doctored  out  of  a  book.  But  the  parallel  of  the  arts  is  clearly 
not  in  point;  for  the  physician  does  nothing  contrary  to  reason 
from  motives  of  friendship;  he  only  cures  a  patient  and  takes  a  fee; 
whereas  magistrates  do  many  things  from  spite  and  partiality. 
And,  indeed,  if  a  man  suspected  the  physician  of  being  in  league 
with  his  enemies  to  destroy  him  for  a  bribe,  he  would  rather  have 
recourse  to  the  book.  Even  physicians  when  they  are  sick,  call  in 
other  physicians,  and  training-masters  when  they  are  in  training, 
other  training-masters,  as  if  they  could  not  judge  truly  about  their 
own  case  and  might  be  influenced  by  their  feelings.  Hence  it  is 
evident  that  in  seeking  for  justice  men  seek  for  the  mean  or  neutral, 
and  the  law  is  the  mean.  Again,  customary  laws  have  more  weight, 
and  relate  to  more  important  matters,  than  written  laws,  and  a  man 
may  be  a  safer  ruler  than  the  written  law,  but  not  safer  than  the 
customary  law. 

Again,  it  is  by  no  means  easy  for  one  man  to  superintend  many 
things;  he  will  have  to  appoint  a  number  of  subordinates,  and 
what  difference  does  it  make  whether  these  subordinates  always 
existed  or  were  appointed  by  him  because  he  needed  them?  If, 
as  I  said  before,  the  good  man  has  a  right  to  rule  because  he  is 


78  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

better,  then  two  good  men  are  better  than  one:  this  is  the  old  say- 
ing,— 

two  going  together; 

and  the  prayer  of  Agamemnon, — 

would  that  I  had  ten  such  counsellors! 

And  at  this  day  there  are  some  magistrates,  for  example  judges, 
who  have  authority  to  decide  matters  which  the  law  is  unable  to 
determine,  since  no  one  doubts  that  the  law  would  command  and 
decide  in  the  best  manner  whatever  it  could.  But  some  things 
can,  and  other  things  cannot,  be  comprehended  under  the  law, 
and  this  is  the  origin  of  the  vexed  question  whether  the  best  law 
or  the  best  man  should  rule.  For  matters  of  detail  about  which 
men  deliberate  cannot  be  included  in  legislation.  Nor  does  any 
one  deny  that  the  decision  of  such  matters  must  be  left  to  man, 
but  it  is  argued  that  there  should  be  many  judges,  and  not  one 
only.  For  every  ruler  who  has  been  trained  by  the  law  judges 
well;  and  it  would  surely  seem  strange  that  a  person  should  see 
better  with  two  eyes,  or  hear  better  with  two  ears,  or  act  better 
with  two  hands  or  feet,  than  many  with  many;  indeed,  it  is  already 
the  practice  of  kings  to  make  to  themselves  many  eyes  and  ears 
and  hands  and  feet.  For  they  make  colleagues  of  those  who  are 
the  friends  of  themselves  and  their  governments.  They  must 
be  friends  of  the  monarch  and  of  his  government ;  if  not  his  friends, 
they  will  not  do  what  he  wants;  but  friendship  implies  likeness 
and  equality;  and,  therefore,  if  he  thinks  that  friends  ought  to 
rule,  he  must  think  that  those  who  are  equal  to  himself  and  like 
himself  ought  to  rule.  These  are  the  principal  controversies 
relating  to  monarchy. 

But  may  not  all  this  be  true  in  some  cases  and  not  in  others? 
for  there  is  a  natural  justice  and  expediency  in  the  relation  of  a 
master  to  his  servants,  or,  again,  of  a  king  to  his  subjects,  as  also, 
in  the  relation  of  free  citizens  to  one  another;  whereas  there  is  no 
such  justice  or  expediency  in  a  tyranny,  or  in  any  other  perverted 
form  of  government,  which  comes  into  being  contrary  to  nature. 
Now,  from  what  has  been  said,  it  is  manifest  that,  where  men  are 
alike  and  equal,  it  is  neither  expedient  nor  just  that  one  man  should 
be  lord  of  all,  whether  there  are  laws,  or  whether  there  are  no  laws, 
but  he  himself  is  in  the  place  of  law.  Neither  should  a  good  man 
be  lord  over  good  men,  or  a  bad  man  over  bad;  nor,  even  if  he 
excels  in  virtue,  should  he  have  a  right  to  rule,  unless  in  a  particu- 
lar case,  which  I  have  already  mentioned,  and  to  which  I  will 
once  more  recur.  But  first  of  all,  I  must  determine  what  natures 


ARISTOTLE  79 

are  suited  for  royalties,  and  what  for  an  aristocracy,  and  what  for 
a  constitutional  government. 

A  people  who  are  by  nature  capable  of  producing  a  race  superior 
in  virtue  and  political  talent  are  fitted  for  kingly  government ;  and 
a  people  submitting  to  be  ruled  as  freemen  by  men  whose  virtue 
renders  them  capable  of  political  command  are  adapted  for  an 
aristocracy:  while  the  people  who  are  suited  for  constitutional 
freedom,  are  those  among  whom  there  naturally  exists  a  warlike 
multitude  able  to  rule  and  to  obey  in  turn  by  a  law  which  gives 
office  to  the  well-to-do  according  to  their  desert.  But  when  a 
whole  family,  or  some  individual,  happens  to  be  so  preeminent 
in  virtue  as  to  surpass  all  others,  then  it  is  just  that  they  should 
be  the  royal  family  and  supreme  over  all,  or  that  this  one  citizen 
should  be  king  of  the  whole  nation.  For,  as  I  said  before,  to 
give  them  authority  is  not  only  agreeable  to  that  ground  of  right 
which  the  founders  of  all  states,  whether  aristocratical,  or  oligarchi- 
cal, or  again  democratical,  are  accustomed  to  put  forward; 
(for  these  all  recognize  the  claim  of  excellence,  although  not  the 
same  excellence),  but  accords  with  the  principle  already  laid  down. 
For  it  would  not  be  right  to  kill,  or  ostracise,  or  exile  such  a  person, 
or  require  that  he  should  take  his  turn  in  being  governed.  The 
whole  is  naturally  superior  to  the  part,  and  he  who  has  this  pre- 
eminence is  in  the  relation  of  a  whole  to  a  part.  But  if  so,  the 
only  alternative  is  that  he  should  have  the  supreme  power,  and 
that  mankind  should  obey  him,  not  in  turn,  but  always.  These 
are  the  conclusions  at  which  we  arrive  respecting  royalty  and  its 
various  forms,  and  this  is  the  answer  to  the  question,  whether  it 
is  or  is  not  advantageous  to  states,  and  to  whom,  and  how. 

In  all  arts  and  sciences  which  embrace  the  whole  of  any  subject, 
and  are  not  restricted  to  a  part  only,  it  is  the  province  of  a  single 
art  or  science  to  consider  all  that  appertains  to  a  single  subject. 
For  example,  the  art  of  gymnastic  considers  not  only  the  suitable- 
ness of  different  modes  of  training  to  different  bodies  (2),  but  what 
sort  is  absolutely  the  best  (i);  (for  the  absolutely  best  must  suit 
that  which  is  by  nature  best  and  best  furnished  with  the  means  of 
life),  and  also  what  common  form  of  training  is  adapted  to  the 
great  majority  of  men  (4).  And  if  a  man  does  not  desire  the  best 
habit  of  body  or  the  greatest  skill  in  gymnastics,  which  might  be 
attained  by  him,  still  the  trainer  or  the  teacher  of  gymnastic  should 
be  able  to  impart  any  lower  degree  of  either  (3).  The  same 
principle  equally  holds  in  medicine  and  ship-building,  and  the 
making  of  clothes,  and  in  the  arts  generally. 


80  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Hence  it  is  obvious  that  government,  too,  is  the  subject  of  a 
single  science,  which  has  to  consider  what  kind  of  government 
would  be  best  and  most  in  accordance  with  our  aspirations,  if  there 
were  no  external  impediment,  and  also  what  kind  of  government 
is  adapted  to  particular  states.  For  the  best  is  often  unattainable, 
and  therefore  the  true  legislator  and  statesman  ought  to  be  ac- 
quainted, not  only  with  (i)  that  which  is  best  in  the  abstract,  but 
also  with  (2)  that  which  is  best  relatively  to  circumstances.  We 
should  be  able  further  to  say  how  a  state  may  be  constituted 
under  any  given  conditions  (3);  both  how  it  is  originally  formed 
and,  when  formed,  how  it  may  be  longest  preserved;  the  supposed 
state  being  so  far  from  the  very  best  that  it  is  unprovided  even 
with  the  conditions  necessary  for  the  very  best ;  neither  is  it  the 
best  under  the  circumstances,  but  of  an  inferior  type. 

He  ought,  moreover,  to  know  (4)  the  form  of  government  which 
is  best  suited  to  states  in  general;  for  political  writers,  although 
they  have  excellent  ideas,  are  often  unpractical.  We  should  con- 
sider, not  only  what  form  of  government  is  best,  but  also  what  is 
possible  and  what  is  easily  attainable  by  all.  There  are  some  who 
would  have  none  but  the  most  perfect;  for  this  many  natural 
advantages  are  required.  Others,  again,  speak  of  a  more  attain- 
able form,  and,  although  they  reject  the  constitution  under  which 
they  are  living,  they  extol  some  one  in  particular,  for  example 
the  Lacedaemonian.  Any  change  of  government  which  has  to 
be  introduced  should  be  one  which  men  will  be  both  willing  and 
able  to  adopt,  since  there  is  quite  as  much  trouble  in  the  reforma- 
tion of  an  old  constitution  as  in  the  establishment  of  a  new  one, 
just  as  to  unlearn  is  as  hard  as  to  learn.  And  therefore,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  qualifications  of  the  statesman  already  mentioned,  he 
should  be  able  to  find  remedies  for  the  defects  of  existing  consti- 
tutions. This  he  cannot  do  unless  he  knows  how  many  forms  of 
a  government  there  are.  It  is  often  supposed  that  there  is  only 
one  kind  of  democracy  and  one  of  oligarchy.  But  this  is  a  mis- 
take; and,  in  order  to  avoid  such  mistakes,  we  must  ascertain  what 
differences  there  are  in  the  constitutions  of  states,  and  in  how  many 
ways  they  are  combined.  The  same  political  insight  will  enable  a 
man  to  know  which  laws  are  the  best,  and  which  are  suited  to  dif- 
ferent constitutions;  for  the  laws  are,  and  ought  to  be,  relative  to 
the  constitution,  and  not  the  constitution  to  the  laws.  A  consti- 
tution is  the  organization  of  offices  in  a  state,  and  determines  what 
is  to  be  the  governing  body,  and  what  is  the  end  of  each  com- 
munity. But  laws  are  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  principles  of 
the  constitution:  they  are  the  rules  according  to  which  the  magis- 


ARISTOTLE  81 

trates  should  administer  the  state,  and  proceed  against  offenders. 
So  that  we  must  know  the  number  and  varieties  of  the  several 
forms  of  government,  if  only  with  a  view  to  making  laws.  For 
the  same  laws  cannot  be  equally  suited  to  all  oligarchies  and  to 
all  democracies,  and  there  is  certainly  more  than  one  form  both  of 
democracy  and  of  oligarchy. 

There  are  still  two  forms  besides  democracy  and  oligarchy; 
one  of  them  is  universally  recognized  and  included  among  the  four 
principal  forms  of  government  which  are  said  to  be  (i)  monarchy, 
(2)  oligarchy,  (3)  democracy,  and  (4)  the  so-called  aristocracy  or 
government  of  the  best.  But  there  is  also  a  fifth,  which  retains 
the  generic  name  of  polity  or  constitutional  government;  this  is 
not  common,  and  therefore  has  not  been  noticed  by  writers  who 
attempt  to  enumerate  the  different  kinds  of  government;  like 
Plato  in  his  books  about  the  state,  they  recognize  four  only.  The 
term  "aristocracy"  is  rightly  applied  to  the  form  of  government 
which  is  described  in  the  first  part  of  our  treatise;  for  that  only  can 
be  rightly  called  aristocracy  [the  government  of  the  best]  which  is 
a  government  formed  of  the  best  men  absolutely,  and  not  merely 
of  men  who  are  good  when  tried  by  any  given  standard.  In  the 
perfect  state  the  good  man  is  absolutely  the  same  as  the  good 
citizen;  whereas  in  other  states  the  good  citizen  is  only  good 
relatively  to  his  own  form  of  government.  But  there  are  some 
states  differing  from  oligarchies  and  also  differing  from  the  so- 
called  polity  or  constitutional  government;  these  are  termed 
aristocracies,  and  in  them  magistrates  are  certainly  chosen,  both 
according  to  their  wealth  and  according  to  their  merit.  Such  a 
form  of  government  is  not  the  same  with  the  two  just  now  men- 
tioned, and  is  termed  an  aristocracy.  For  indeed  in  states  which 
do  not  make  virtue  the  aim  of  the  community,  men  of  merit  and 
reputation  for  virtue  may  be  found.  And  so  where  a  government 
has  regard  to  wealth,  virtue,  and  numbers,  as  at  Carthage,  that 
is  aristocracy;  and  also  where  it  has  regard  only  to  two  out  of  the 
three,  as  at  Lacedaemon,  to  virtue  and  numbers,  and  the  two 
principles  of  democracy  and  virtue  temper  each  other.  There 
are  these  two  forms  of  aristocracy  in  addition  to  the  first  and  per- 
fect state,  and  there  is  a  third  form,  viz.  the  polities  which  incline 
towards  oligarchy. 

I  have  yet  to  speak  of  the  go-called  polity  and  of  tyranny.  I 
put  them  in  this  order,  not  because  a  polity  or  constitutional 
government  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  perversion  any  more  than  the 
above-mentioned  aristocracies.  The  truth  is,  that  they  all  fall 


82  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

short  of  the  most  perfect  form  of  government,  and  so  they  are 
reckoned  among  perversions,  and  other  forms  (sc.  the  really 
perverted  forms)  are  perversions  of  these,  as  I  said  before.  Last 
of  all  I  will  speak  of  tyranny,  which  I  place  last  in  the  series  because 
I  am  inquiring  into  the  constitutions  of  states,  and  this  is  the  very 
reverse  of  a  constitution. 

Having  explained  why  I  have  adopted  this  order,  I  will  proceed 
to  consider  constitutional  government;  of  which  the  nature  will 
be  clearer  now  that  oligarchy  and  democracy  have  been  defined. 
For  polity  or  constitutional  government  may  be  described  general- 
ly as  a  fusion  of  oligarchy  and  democracy;  but  the  term  is  usually 
applied  to  those  forms  of  government  which  incline  towards 
democracy,  and  the  term  aristocracy  to  those  which  incline  towards 
oligarchy,  because  birth  and  education  are  commonly  the  accom- 
paniments of  wealth.  Moreover,  the  rich  already  possess  the 
external  advantages  the  want  of  which  is  a  temptation  to  crime, 
and  hence  they  are  called  noblemen  and  gentlemen.  And  in- 
asmuch as  aristocracy  seeks  to  give  predominance  to  the  best  of 
the  citizens,  people  say  also  of  oligarchies  that  they  are  composed 
of  noblemen  and  gentlemen.  Now  it  appears  to  be  an  impossible 
thing  that  the  state  which  is  governed  by  the  best  citizens  should 
be  ill-governed,  and  equally  impossible  that  the  state  which  is  ill- 
governed  should  be  governed  by  the  best.  But  we  must  remem- 
ber that  good  laws,  if  they  are  not  obeyed,  do  not  constitute  good 
government.  For  there  are  two  parts  of  good  government;  one 
is  the  actual  obedience  of  citizens  to  the  laws,  the  other  part  is  the 
goodness  of  the  laws  which  they  obey;  they  may  obey  bad  laws 
as  well  as  good.  And  there  may  be  a  further  subdivision;  they 
may  obey  either  the  best  laws  which  are  attainable  to  them,  or  the 
best  absolutely. 

The  distribution  of  offices  according  to  merit  is  a  special  charac- 
teristic of  aristocracy,  for  the  principle  of  an  aristocracy  is  virtue, 
as  wealth  is  of  an  oligarchy,  and  freedom  of  a  democracy.  In  all 
of  them  there  of  course  exists  the  right  of  the  majority,  and  what- 
ever seems  good  to  the  majority  of  those  who  share  in  the  govern- 
ment has  authority.  Generally,  however,  a  state  of  this  kind  is- 
called  a  constitutional  government,  for  the  fusion  goes  no  further 
than  the  attempt  to  unite  the  freedom  of  the  poor  and  the  wealth 
of  the  rich,  who  commonly  take  the  place  of  the  noble.  And 
as  there  are  three  grounds  on  which  men  claim  an  equal  share 
in  the  government,  freedom,  wealth,  and  virtue  (for  the  fourth  or 
good  birth  is  the  result  of  the  two  last>  being  only  ancient  wealth 
and  virtue),  it  is  clear  that  the  admixture  of  the  two  elements, 


ARISTOTLE  83 

that  is  to  say,  of  the  rich  and  poor,  is  to  be  called  a  polity  or 
constitutional  government ;  and  the  union  of  the  three  is  to  be  called 
aristocracy  or  the  government  of  the  best,  and  more  than  any  other 
form  of  government,  except  the  true  and  ideal,  has  a  right  to  this 
name. 

Thus  far  I  have  described  the  different  forms  of  states  which 
exist  besides  monarchy,  democracy,  and  oligarchy,  and  what  they 
are,  and  in  what  aristocracies  differ  from  one  another,  and  polities 
from  aristocracies — that  the  two  latter  are  not  very  unlike  is 
obvious. 

Next  we  have  to  consider  how  by  the  side  of  oligarchy  and  de- 
mocracy the  so-called  polity  or  constitutional  government  springs 
up,  and  how  it  should  be  organized.  The  nature  of  it  will  be  at 
once  understood  from  a  comparison  of  oligarchy  and  democracy; 
we  must  ascertain  their  different  characteristics,  and  taking  a 
portion  from  each,  put  the  two  together,  like  the  parts  of  an  in- 
denture. Now  there  are  three  modes  in  which  fusions  of  govern- 
ment may  be  effected.  The  nature  of  the  fusion  will  be  made 
intelligible  by  an  example  of  the  manner  in  which  different  govern- 
ments legislate,  say  concerning  the  administration  of  justice.  In 
oligarchies  they  impose  a  fine  on  the  rich  if  they  do  not  serve  as 
judges,  and  to  the  poor  they  give  no  pay;  but  in  democracies  they 
give  pay  to  the  poor  and  do  not  fine  the  rich.  Now  (i)  the  union 
of  these  two  modes  is  a  common  or  middle  term  between  them,  and 
is  therefore  characteristic  of  a  constitutional  government,  for  it  is 
a  combination  of  both.  This  is  one  mode  of  uniting  the  two  ele- 
ments. Or  (2)  a  mean  may  be  taken  between  the  enactments  of 
the  two:  thus  democracies  require  no  property  qualification,  or 
only  a  small  one,  from  members  of  the  assembly,  oligarchies  a 
high  one;  here  neither  of  these  is  the  common  term,  but  a  mean 
between  them.  (3)  There  is  a  third  mode,  in  which  something 
is  borrowed  from  the  oligarchical  and  something  from  the  demo- 
cratical  principle.  For  example,  the  appointment  of  magistrates 
by  lot  is  democratical,  and  the  election  of  them  oligarchical; 
democratical  again  when  there  is  no  property  qualification,  oli- 
garchical when  there  is.  In  the  aristocratical  or  constitutional 
state,  one  element  will  be  taken  from  each — from  oligarchy  the 
mode  of  electing  to  offices,  from  democracy  the  disregard  of 
qualification.  Such  are  the  various  modes  of  combination. 

We  have  now  to  inquire  what  is  the  best  constitution  for 
most  states,  and  the  best  life  for  most  men,  neither  assuming  a 
standard  of  virtue  which  is  above  ordinary  persons,  nor  an  edu- 


' 


84  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

cation  which  is  exceptionally  favored  by  nature  and  circum- 
stances, nor  yet  an  ideal  state  which  is  an  aspiration  only,  but 
having  regard  to  the  life  in  which  the  majority  are  able  to  share, 
and  to  the  form  of  government  which  states  in  general  can  attain. 
As  to  those  aristocracies,  as  they  are  called,  of  which  we  were  just 
now  speaking,  they  either  lie  beyond  the  possibilities  of  the  greater 
number  of  states,  or  they  approximate  to  the  so-called  constitu- 
tional government,  and  therefore  need  no  separate  discussion. 
And  in  fact  the  conclusion  at  which  we  arrive  respecting  all  these 
forms  rests  upon  the  same  grounds.  For  if  it  has  been  truly 
said  in  the  Ethics  that  the  happy  life  is  the  life  according  to  un- 
impeded virtue,  and  that  virtue  is  a  mean,  then  the  life  which  is 
in  a  mean,  and  in  a  mean  attainable  by  every  one,  must  be  the 
best.  And  the  same  principles  of  virtue  and  vice  are  character- 
istic of  cities  and  of  constitutions;  for  the  constitution  is  in  a  figure 
the  life  of  the  city. 

Now  in  all  states  there  are  three  elements;  one  class  is  very 
rich,  another  very  poor,  and  a  third  in  a  mean.  It  is  admitted 
that  moderation  and  the  mean  are  best,  and  therefore  it  will 
clearly  be  best  to  possess  the  gifts  of  fortune  in  moderation;  for 
in  that  condition  of  life  men  are  most  ready  to  listen  to  reason. 
But  he  who  greatly  excels  in  beauty,  strength,  birth  or  wealth,  or 
on  the  other  hand  who  is  very  poor,  or  very  weak,  or  very  much 
disgraced,  finds  it  difficult  to  follow  reason.  Of  these  two  the 
one  sort  grow  into  violent  and  great  criminals,  the  others  into 
rogues  and  petty  rascals.  And  two  sorts  of  offences  correspond 
to  them,  the  one  committed  from  violence,  the  other  from  roguery. 
The  petty  rogues  are  disinclined  to  hold  office,  whether  military 
or  civil,  and  their  aversion  to  these  two  duties  is  as  great  an  injury 
to  the  state  as  their  tendency  to  crime.  Again,  those  who  have 
too  much  of  the  goods  of  fortune,  strength,  wealth,  friends,  and 
the  like,  are  neither  willing  nor  able  to  submit  to  authority.  The 
evil  begins  at  home:  for  when  they  are  boys,  by  reason  of  the  luxury 
in  which  they  are  brought  up,  they  never  learn,  even  at  school 
the  habit  of  obedience.  On  the  other  hand,  the  very  poor,  who  are 
in  the  opposite  extreme,  are  too  degraded.  So  that  the  one  class 
cannot  obey,  and  can  only  rule  despotically;  the  other  knows  not 
how  to  command  and  must  be  ruled  like  slaves.  Thus  arises  a 
city,  not  of  freemen,  but  of  masters  and  slaves,  the  one  despising, 
the  other  envying;  and  nothing  can  be  more  fatal  to  friendship 
and  good  fellowship  in  states  than  this:  for  good  fellowship  tends 
to  friendship;  when  men  are  at  enmity  with  one  another,  they 
would  rather  not  even  share  the  same  path.  But  a  city  ought  to 


ARISTOTLE  85 

be  composed,  as  far  as  possible,  of  equals  and  similars;  and  these 
are  generally  the  middle  classes.  Wherefore  the  city  which  is 
composed  of  middle-class  citizens  is  necessarily  best  governed; 
they  are,  as  we  say,  the  natural  elements  of  a  state.  And  this  is 
the  class  of  citizens  which  is  most  secure  in  a  state,  for  they  do 
not,  like  the  poor,  covet  their  neighbors'  goods;  nor  do  others 
covet  theirs,  as  the  poor  covet  the  goods  of  the  rich;  and  as  they 
neither  plot  against  others,  nor  are  themselves  plotted  against, 
they  pass  through  life  safely.  Wisely  then  did  Phocylides  pray, — 

Many  things  are  best  in  the  mean  ;  I  desire  to  be  of  a  middle  condition  in 
my  city. 

Thus  it  is  manifest  that  the  best  political  community  is  formed 
by  citizens  of  the  middle  class,  and  that  those  states  are  likely 
to  be  well-administered,  in  which  the  middle  class  is  large,  and 
larger  if  possible  than  both  the  other  classes,  or  at  any  rate  than 
either  singly;  for  the  addition  of  the  middle  class  turns  the  scale, 
and  prevents  either  of  the  extremes  from  being  dominant.  Great 
then  is  the  good  fortune  of  a  state  in  which  the  citizens  have  a 
moderate  and  sufficient  property;  for  where  some  possess  much, 
and  the  others  nothing,  there  may  arise  an  extreme  democracy, 
or  a  pure  oligarchy;  or  a  tyranny  may  grow  out  of  either  extreme, — 
either  out  of  the  most  rampant  democracy,  or  out  of  an  oligarchy; 
but  it  is  not  so  likely  to  arise  out  of  a  middle  and  nearly  equal 
condition.  I  will  explain  the  reason  of  this  hereafter,  when  I 
speak  of  the  revolutions  of  states.  The  mean  condition  of  states 
is  clearly  best,  for  no  other  is  free  from  faction;  and  where  the 
middle  class  is  large,  there  are  least  likely  to  be  factions  and  dis- 
sensions. For  a  similar  reason  large  states  are  less  liable  to  faction 
than  small  ones,  because  in  them  the  middle  class  is  large;  where- 
as in  small  states  it  is  easy  to  divide  all  the  citizens  into  two 
classes  who  are  either  rich  or  poor,  and  to  leave  nothing  in  the 
middle.  And  democracies  are  safer  and  more  permanent  than 
oligarchies,  because  they  have  a  middle  class  which  is  more  numer- 
ous and  has  a  greater  share  in  the  government;  for  when  there  is 
no  middle  class,  and  the  poor  greatly  exceed  in  number,  troubles 
arise,  and  the  state  soon  comes  to  an  end.  A  proof  of  the  su- 
periority of  the  middle  class  is  that  the  best  legislators  have  been 
of  a  middle  condition;  for  example,  Solon,  as  his  own  verses  testify; 
and  Lycurgus,  for  he  was  not  a  king;  and  Charondas,  and  almost 
all  legislators. 

These  considerations  will  help  us  to  understand  why  most 
governments  are  either  democratical  or  oligarchical.  The  reason 
is  that  the  middle  class  is  seldom  numerous  in  them,  and  which- 


86  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

ever  party,  whether  the  rich  or  the  common  people,  transgresses 
the  mean  and  predominates,  draws  the  government  to  itself,  and 
thus  arises  either  oligarchy  or  democracy.  There  is  another  rea- 
son— the  poor  and  the  rich  quarrel  with  one  another,  and  which- 
ever side  gets  the  better,  instead  of  establishing  a  just  or  popular 
government,  regards  political  supremacy  as  the  prize  of  victory, 
and  the  one  party  sets  up  a  democracy  and  the  other  an  oligarchy. 
Both  the  parties  which  had  the  supremacy  in  Hellas  looked  only 
to  the  interest  of  their  own  form  of  government,  and  established 
in  states,  the  one,  democracies,  and  the  other,  oligarchies;  they 
thought  of  their  own  advantage,  of  the  public  not  at  all.  For 
these  reasons  the  middle  form  of  government  has  rarely,  if  ever, 
existed,  and  among  a  very  few  only.  One  man  alone  of  all  who  ever 
ruled  in  Hellas  was  induced  to  give  this  middle  constitution  to 
states.  But  it  has  now  become  a  habit  among  the  citizens  of 
states,  not  even  to  care  about  equality;  all  men  are  seeking  for 
dominion,  or,  if  conquered,  are  willing  to  submit. 

What  then  is  the  best  form  of  government,  and  what  makes  it 
the  best  is  evident;  and  of  other  states,  since  we  say  that  there 
are  many  kinds  of  democracy  and  many  of  oligarchy,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  see  which  has  the  first  and  which  the  second  or  any 
other  place  in  the  order  of  excellence,  now  that  we  have  deter- 
mined which  is  the  best.  For  that  which  is  nearest  to  the  best  must 
of  necessity  be  better,  and  that  which  is  furthest  from  it  worse, 
if  we  are  judging  absolutely  and  not  relatively  to  given  conditions : 
I  say  "relatively  to  given  conditions,"  since  a  particular  govern- 
ment may  be  preferable  for  some,  but  another  form  may  be  better 
for  others. 

We  have  now  to  consider  what  and  what  kind  of  government  is 
suitable  to  what  and  what  kind  of  men.  I  may  begin  by  assum- 
ing, as  a  general  principle  common  to  all  governments,  that  the 
portion  of  the  state  which  desires  permanence  ought  to  be  stronger 
than  that  which  desires  the  reverse.  Now  every  city  is  composed 
of  quality  and  quantity.  By  quality  I  mean  freedom,  wealth, 
education,  good  birth,  and  by  quantity,  superiority  of  numbers. 
Quality  may  exist  in  one  of  the  classes  which  make  up  the  state, 
and  quantity  in  the  other.  For  example,  the  meanly-born  may 
be  more  in  number  than  the  well-born,  or  the  poor  than  the 
rich,  yet  they  may  not  so  much  exceed  in  quantity  as  they  fall 
short  in  quality;  and  therefore  there  must  be  a  comparison  of 
quantity  and  quality.  Where  the  number  of  the  poor  is  more  than 
proportioned  to  the  wealth  of  the  rich,  there  will  naturally  be  a 
democracy,  varying  in  form  with  the  sort  of  people  who  compose 


ARISTOTLE  87 

it  in  each  case.  If,  for  example,  the  husbandmen  exceed  in  num- 
ber, the  first  form  of  democracy  will  then  arise ;  if  the  artisans  and 
laboring  class,  the  last;  and  so  with  the  intermediate  forms.  But 
where  the  rich  and  the  notables  exceed  in  quality  more  than  they 
fall  short  in  quantity,  there  oligarchy  arises,  similarly  assuming 
various  forms  according  to  the  kind  of  superiority  possessed  by 
the  oligarchs. 

The  legislator  should  always  include  the  middle  class  in  his 
government;  if  he  makes  his  laws  oligarchical,  to  the  middle  class 
let  him  look;  if  he  makes  them  democratical,  he  should  equally 
by  his  laws  try  to  attach  this  class  to  the  state.  There  only  can 
the  government  ever  be  stable  where  the  middle  class  exceeds 
one  or  both  of  the  others,  and  in  that  case  there  will  be  no  fear  that 
the  rich  will  unite  with  the  poor  against  the  rulers.  For  neither 
of  them  will  ever  be  willing  to  serve  the  other,  and  if  they  look 
for  some  form  of  government  more  suitable  to  both,  they  will 
find  none  better  than  this,  for  the  rich  and  the  poor  will  never 
consent  to  rule  in  turn,  because  they  mistrust  one  another.  The 
arbiter  is  always  the  one  trusted,  and  he  who  is  in  the  middle  is  an 
arbiter.  The  more  perfect  the  admixture  of  the  political  elements, 
the  more  lasting  will  be  the  state.  Many  even  of  those  who  desire 
to  form  aristocratical  governments  make  a  mistake,  not  only 
in  giving  too  much  power  to  the  rich,  but  in  attempting  to  over- 
reach the  people.  There  comes  a  time  when  out  of  a  false  good 
there  arises  a  true  evil,  since  the  encroachments  of  the  rich  are 
more  destructive  to  the  state  than  those  of  the  people. 

The  basis  of  a  democratic  state  is  liberty;  which,  according  to 
the  common  opinion  of  men,  can  only  be  enjoyed  in  such  a  state; — 
this  they  affirm  to  be  the  great  end  of  every  democracy.  One 
principle  of  liberty  is  for  all  to  rule  and  be  ruled  in  turn,.and  indeed 
democratic  justice  is  the  application  of  numerical  not  proportion- 
ate equality;  whence  it  follows  that  the  majority  must  be  supreme, 
and  that  whatever  the  majority  approve  must  be  the  end  and  the 
just.  Every  citizen,  it  is  said,  must  have  equality,  and  therefore 
in  a  democracy  the  poor  have  more  power  than  the  rich,  because 
there  are  more  of  them,  and  the  will  of  the  majority  is  supreme. 
This,  then,  is  one  note  of  liberty  which  all  democrats  affirm  to  be 
the  principle  of  their  state.  Another  is  that  a  man  should  live  as 
he  likes.  This,  they  say,  is  the  privilege  of  a  freeman,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  not  to  live  as  a  man  likes  is  the  mark  of  a  slave.  This 
is  the  second  characteristic  of  democracy,  whence  has  arisen  the 
claim  of  men  to  be  ruled  by  none,  if  possible,  or,  if  this  is  impossible, 


88  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

to  rule  and  be  ruled  in  turns;  and  so  it  coincides  with  the  freedom 
based  upon  equality  [which  was  the  first  characteristic]. 

Such  being  our  foundation  and  such  the  nature  of  democracy, 
its  characteristics  are  as  follows: — the  election  of  officers  by  all 
out  of  all;  and  that  all  should  rule  over  each,  and  each  in  his  turn 
over  all;  that  the  appointment  to  all  offices,  or  to  all  but  those 
which  require  experience  and  skill,  should  be  made  by  lot;  that 
no  property  qualification  should  be  required  for  offices,  or  only  a 
very  low  one;  that  no  one  should  hold  the  same  office  twice,  or 
not  often,  except  in  the  case  of  military  offices;  that  the  tenure 
of  all  offices,  or  of  as  many  as  possible,  should  be  brief;  that  all 
men  should  sit  in  judgment,  or  that  judges  selected  out  of  all 
should  judge  in  all  matters,  or  in  most,  or  in  the  greatest  and  most 
important, — such  as  the  scrutiny  of  accounts,  the  constitution, 
and  private  contracts;  that  the  assembly  should  be  supreme  over 
all  causes,  or  at  any  rate  over  the  most  important,  and  the  mag- 
istrates over  none  or  only  over  a  very  few.  Of  all  institutions,  a 
council  is  the  most  democratic  when  there  is  not  the  means  of 
paying  all  the  citizens,  but  when  they  are  paid  even  this  is  robbed 
of  its  power;  for  the  people  then  draw  all  cases  to  themselves,  as 
I  said  in  the  previous  discussion.  The  next  characteristic  of 
democracy  is  payment  for  services;  assembly,  law-courts,  magis- 
trates, everybody  receives  pay,  when  it  is  to  be  had;  or  when  it 
is  not  to  be  had  for  all,  then  it  is  given  to  the  law-courts  and  to  the 
stated  assemblies,  to  the  council  and  to  the  magistrates,  or  at  least 
to  any  of  them  who  are  compelled  to  have  their  meals  together. 
And  whereas  oligarchy  is  characterized  by  birth,  wealth,  and 
education,  the  notes  of  democracy  appear  to  be  the  opposite 
of  these, — low  birth,  poverty,  mean  employment.  Another  note 
is  that  no  magistracy  is  perpetual,  but  if  any  such  have  survived 
some  ancient  change  in  the  constitution  it  should  be  stripped  of 
its  power,  and  the  holders  should  be  elected  by  lot  and  no  longer 
by  vote.  These  are  points  common  to  all  democracies;  but  democ- 
racy and  demos  in  their  truest  form  are  based  upon  the  recognized 
principle  of  democratic  justice,  that  all  should  count  equally; 
for  equality  implies  that  the  rich  should  have  no  more  share  in 
the  government  than  the  poor,  and  should  not  be  the  only  rulers, 
but  that  all  should  rule  equally  according  to  their  numbers.  And 
in  this  way  men  think  that  they  will  secure  equality  and  freedom 
in  their  state. 

Next  comes  the  question,  how  is  this  equality  to  be  obtained? 
Is  the  qualification  to  be  so  distributed  that  five  hundred  rich 
shall  be  equal  to  a  thousand  poor?  and  shall  we  give  the  thousand 


ARISTOTLE  89 

a  power  equal  to  that  of  the  five  hundred?  or,  if  this  is  not  to  be 
the  mode,  ought  we,  still  retaining  the  same  ratio,  to  take  equal 
numbers  from  each  and  give  them  the  control  of  the  elections  and 
of  the  courts? — Which,  according  to  the  democratical  notion,  is 
the  juster  form  of  the  constitution, — this  or  one  based  on  numbers 
only?  Democrats  say  that  justice  is  that  to  which  the  majority 
agree,  oligarchs  that  to  which  the  wealthier  class;  in  their  opinion 
the  decision  should  be  given  according  to  the  amount  of  property. 
In  both  principles  there  is  some  inequality  and  injustice.  For  if 
justice  is  the  will  of  the  few,  any  one  person  who  has  more  wealth 
than  all  the  rest  of  his  class  put  together,  ought,  upon  the  oligarchi- 
cal principle,  to  have  the  sole  power — but  this  would  be  tyranny; 
or  if  justice  is  the  will  of  the  majority,  as  I  was  before  saying,  they 
will  unjustly  confiscate  the  property  of  the  wealthy  minority. 
To  find  a  principle  of  equality  in  which  they  both  agree  we  must 
inquire  into  their  respective  ideas  of  justice. 

Now  they  agree  in  saying  that  whatever  is  decided  by  the 
majority  of  the  citizens  is  to  be  deemed  law.  Granted: — but 
not  without  some  reserve ;  since  there  are  two  classes  out  of  which 
a  state  is  composed, — the  poor  and  the  rich, — that  is  to  be  deemed 
law,  on  which  both  or  the  greater  part  of  both  agree ;  and  if  they 
disagree,  that  which  is  approved  by  the  greater  number,  and  by 
those  who  have  the  high  qualification.  For  example,  suppose 
that  there  are  ten  rich  and  twenty  poor,  and  some  measure  is  ap- 
proved by  six  of  the  rich  and  is  disapproved  by  fifteen  of  the  poor, 
and  the  remaining  four  of  the  rich  join  with  the  part  of  the  poor, 
and  the  remaining  five  of  the  poor  with  that  of  the  rich;  in  such 
a  case  the  will  of  those  whose  qualifications,  when  both  sides  are 
added  up,  are  the  greatest,  should  prevail.  If  they  turn  out  to  be 
equal,  there  is  no  greater  difficulty  than  at  present,  when,  if  the 
assembly  or  the  courts  are  divided,  recourse  is  had  to  the  lot,  or 
to  some  similar  expedient.  But,  although  it  may  be  difficult  in 
theory  to  know  what  is  just  and  equal,  the  practical  difficulty  of 
inducing  those  to  forbear  who  can,  if  they  like,  encroach,  is  far 
greater,  for  the  weaker  are  always  asking  for  equality  and  justice, 
but  the  stronger  care  for  none  of  these  things. 

5.     The  Organs  of  Government l 

All  states  have  three  elements,  and  the  good  law-giver  has  to 
regard  what  is  expedient  for  each  state.  When  they  are  well- 
ordered,  the  state  is  well-ordered,  and  as  they  differ  from  one  an- 

1 IV,  xiv,  xv-xvi  (in  part).    Jowett,  pp.  133-136,  139-141,  142-143. 


90  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

other,  constitutions  differ.  What  is  the  element  first  (i)  which 
deliberates  about  public  affairs;  secondly  (2)  which  is  concerned 
with  the  magistrates  and  determines  what  they  should  be, 
over  whom  they  should  exercise  authority,  and  what  should  be 
the  mode  of  electing  them;  and  thirdly  (3)  which  has  judicial 
power? 

The  deliberative  element  has  authority  in  matters  of  war  and 
peace,  in  making  and  unmaking  alliances;  it  passes  laws,  inflicts 
death,  exile,  confiscation,  audits  the  accounts  of  magistrates.  All 
these  powers  must  be  assigned  either  to  all  the  citizens  or  to  some 
of  them,  for  example,  to  one  or  more  magistracies;  or  different 
causes  to  different  magistracies,  or  some  of  them  to  all,  and  others 
of  them  only  to  some,  f  That  all  things  should  be  decided  by  all 
is  characteristic  of  democracy;  this  is  the  sort  of  equality  which 
the  people  desire.  y^But  there  are  various  ways  in  which  all  may 
share  in  the  government ;  they  may  deliberate,  not  all  in  one  body, 
but  by  turns,  as  in  the  constitution  of  Telecles  the  Milesian. 
There  are  other  states  in  which  the  boards  of  magistrates  meet 
and  deliberate,  but  come  into  office  by  turns,  and  are  elected  out 
of  the  tribes  and  the  very  smallest  divisions  of  the  state,  until 
every  one  has  obtained  office  in  his  turn.  The  citizens,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  assembled  only  for  the  purposes  of  legislation, 
and  to  consult  about  the  constitution,  and  to  hear  the  edicts  of 
the  magistrates.  In  another  variety  of  democracy  the  citizens 
form  one  assembly,  but  meet  only  to  elect  magistrates,  to  pass  laws, 
to  advise  about  war  and  peace,  and  to  make  scrutinies.  Other 
matters  are  referred  severally  to  special  magistrates,  who  are 
elected  by  vote  or  by  lot  out  of  all  the  citizens.  Or  again,  the 
citizens  meet  about  election  to  offices  and  about  scrutinies,  and 
deliberate  concerning  war  or  alliances,  while  other  matters  are 
administered  by  the  magistrates,  who,  as  far  as  is  possible,  are 
elected  by  vote.  I  am  speaking  of  those  magistracies  in  which 
special  knowledge  is  required.  A  fourth  form  of  democracy  is 
when  all  the  citizens  meet  to  deliberate  about  everything,  and  the 
magistrates  decide  nothing,  but  only  make  the  preliminary  in- 
quiries; and  that  is  the  way  in  which  the  last  and  worst  form  of 
democracy,  corresponding,  as  we  maintain,  to  the  close  family 
oligarchy  and  to  tyranny,  is  at  present  administered.  All  these 
modes  are  democratical. 

On  the  other  hand,  that  some  should  deliberate  about  all  is 
oligarchical.  This  again  is  a  mode  which,  like  the  democratical, 
has  many  forms.  When  the  deliberative  class  being  elected  out 
of  those  who  have  a  moderate  qualification  are  numerous  and  they 


ARISTOTLE  91 

respect  and  obey  the  law  without  altering  it,  and  any  one  who  has 
the  required  qualification  shares  in  the  government,  then,  just 
because  of  this  moderation,  the  oligarchy  inclines  toward  polity. 
But  when  only  selected  individuals  and  not  the  whole  people 
share  in  the  deliberations  of  the  state,  then,  although,  as  in  the 
former  case,  they  observe  the  law,  the  government  is  a  pure 
oligarchy.  Or,  again,  when  those  who  have  the  power  of  delibera- 
tion are  self -elected,  and  son  succeeds  father,  and  they  and  not  the 
laws  are  supreme — the  government  is  of  necessity  oligarchical. 
Where,  again,  particular  persons  have  authority  in  particular 
matters; — for  example,  when  the  whole  people  decide  about 
peace  and  war  and  hold  scrutinies,  but  the  magistrates  regu- 
late everything  else,  and  they  are  elected  either  by  vote  or  by 
lot — there  the  form  of  government  is  an  aristocracy  or  polity. 
And  if  some  questions  are  decided  by  magistrates  elected  by  vote, 
and  others  by  magistrates  elected  by  lot,  either  absolutely  or 
out  of  select  candidates,  or  elected  both  by  vote  and  by  lot — 
these  practices  are  partly  characteristic  of  an  aristocratical  govern- 
ment, and  partly  of  a  pure  constitutional  government. 

These  are  the  various  forms  of  the  deliberative  body;  they 
correspond  to  the  various  forms  of  government.  And  the  govern- 
ment of  each  state  is  administered  according  to  one  or  other  of 
the  principles  which  have  been  laid  down.  Now  it  is  for  the 
interest  of  democracy,  according  to  the  most  prevalent  notion  of  it 
(I  am  speaking  of  that  extreme  form  of  democracy,  in  which  the 
people  are  supreme  even  over  the  laws),  with  a  view  to  better 
deliberation  to  adopt  the  custom  of  oligarchies  respecting  courts 
of  law.  For  in  oligarchies  the  rich  who  are  wanted  to  be  judges 
are  compelled  to  attend  under  pain  of  fine,  whereas  in  democracies 
the  poor  are  paid  to  attend.  And  this  practice  of  oligarchies 
should  be  adopted  by  democracies  in  their  public  assemblies,  for 
they  will  advise  better  if  they  all  deliberate  together, — the  people 
with  the  notables  and  the  notables  with  the  people.  It  is  also  a 
good  plan  that  those  who  deliberate  should  be  elected  by  vote 
or  by  lot  in  equal  numbers  out  of  the  different  classes;  and  that  if 
the  people  greatly  exceed  in  number  those  who  have  political 
training,  pay  should  not  be  given  to  all,  but  only  to  as  many  as 
would  balance  the  number  of  the  notables,  or  that  the  number  in 
excess  should  be  eliminated  by  lot.  But  in  oligarchies  either  cer- 
tain persons  should  be  chosen  out  of  the  mass,  or  a  class  of  officers 
should  be  appointed  such  as  exist  in  some  states,  who  are  termed 
probuli  and  guardians  of  the  law;  and  the  citizens  should  occupy 
themselves  exclusively  with  matters  on  which  these  have  previously 


92  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

deliberated;  for  so  the  people  will  have  a  share  in  the  deliberations 
of  the  state,  but  will  not  be  able  to  disturb  the  principles  of  the 
constitution.  Again,  in  oligarchies  either  the  people  ought  to 
accept  the  measures  of  the  government,  or  not  to  pass  anything 
contrary  to  them;  or,  if  all  are  allowed  to  share  in  counsel,  the 
decision  should  rest  with  the  magistrates.  The  opposite  of  what 
is  done  in  constitutional  governments  should  be  the  rule  in  oli- 
garchies; the  veto  of  the  majority  should  be  final,  their  assent  not 
final,  but  the  proposal  should  be  referred  back  to  the  magistrates. 
Whereas  in  constitutional  governments  they  take  the  contrary 
course;  the  few  have  the  negative  not  the  affirmative  power;  the 
affirmation  of  everything  rests  with  the  multitude. 

These,  then,  are  our  conclusions  respecting  the  deliberative, 
that  is,  the  supreme  element  in  states. 

I  will  now  inquire  into  the  appointment  of  offices.  There  are 
three  questions  to  be  answered,  and  the  combinations  of  answers 
give  all  possible  differences:  first,  who  appoints?  secondly,  from 
whom?  and  thirdly,  how?  Each  of  these  three  may  further  differ 
in  three  ways:  (i)  All  the  citizens,  or  only  some,  appoint;  (2)  either 
the  magistrates  are  chosen  out  of  all  or  out  of  some  who  are  distin- 
guished either  by  property  qualification,  or  by  birth,  or  merit,  or  for 
some  special  reason,  as  at  Megara  only  those  were  eligible  who  had 
returned  from  exile  and  fought  together  against  the  democracy;  (3) 
they  may  be  appointed  either  by  vote  or  by  lot.  Again,  these  several 
modes  may  be  combined:  I  mean  that  some  officers  may  be  elected 
by  some,  others  by  all,  and  some  again  out  of  some,  and  others 
out  of  all,  and  some  by  vote  and  others  by  lot.  Each  of  these 
differences  admits  of  four  variations,  (i)  Either  all  may  elect 
out  of  all  by  vote,  or  all  out  of  all  by  lot;  and  either  out  of  all 
collectively  or  by  sections,  as,  for  example,  by  tribes,  and  wards, 
and  phratries,  until  all  the  citizens  have  been  gone  through;  or 
the  citizens  may  be  in  all  cases  eligible  indiscriminately,  and  in 
some  cases  they  may  be  elected  by  vote,  and  in  some  by  lot.  Again 
(2),  if  only  some  appoint,  they  may  appoint  out  of  all  by  vote,  or 
out  of  all  by  lot;  or  out  of  some  by  vote,  out  of  some  by  lot,  and 
some  offices  may  be  appointed  in  one  way  and  some  in  another^" 
I  mean  if  they  are  appointed  by  all  they  may  be  appointed  partly 
by  vote  and  partly  by  lot.  Thus  there  will  be  twelve  forms  of 
appointment  without  including  the  two  combinations  in  the  mode 
of  election.  Of  these  varieties  two  are  democratic  forms,  namely, 
when  the  choice  is  made  by  all  the  people  out  of  all  by  vote  or  by 
lot,  or  by  both,  that  is  to  say,  some  by  lot  and  some  by  vote.  The 


ARISTOTLE  95 

cases  in  which  they  do  not  all  appoint  at  one  time,  but  some  appoint 
out  of  all  or  out  of  some  by  vote  or  by  lot  or  by  both  (I  mean  some 
by  lot  and  some  by  vote),  or  some  out  of  all  and  others  out  of 
some  both  by  lot  and  vote,  are  characteristic  of  a  polity  or  consti- 
tutional government.  That  some  should  be  appointed  out  of  all 
by  vote  or  by  lot  or  by  both,  is  oligarchical,  and  still  more  oli- 
garchical when  some  are  elected  from  all  and  some  from  some. 

'"That  some  should  be  elected  out  of  all  and  some  out  of  some,  or 
again  some  by  vote  and  others  by  lot,  is  characteristic  of  a  con- 

•  stitutional  government,  which  inclines  to  an  aristocracy.  That 
some  should  be  chosen  out  of  some,  and  some  taken  by  lot  out 
of  some,  is  oligarchical  though  not  equally  oligarchical;  oligarchical, 
too,  is  the  appointment  of  some  out  of  some  in  both  ways,  and  of 
some  out  of  all.  But  that  all  should  elect  by  vote  out  of  some  is 
aristocratical. 

These  are  the  different  ways  of  constituting  magistrates,  and 
in  this  manner  officers  correspond  to  different  forms  of  govern- 
ment:— which  are  proper  to  which,  or  how  they  ought  to  be  estab- 
lished, will  be  evident  when  we  determine  the  nature  of  their 
powers.  By  powers  I  mean  such  power  as  a  magistrate  exercises 
over  the  revenue  or  in  defence  of  the  country;  for  there  are  various 
kinds  of  power:  the  power  of  the  general,  for  example,  is  not  the 
same  with  that  which  regulates  contracts  in  the  market. 

Of  the  three  parts  of  government,  the  judicial  remains  to  be 
considered,  and  this  we  shall  divide  on  the  same  principle.  There 
are  three  points  on  which  the  varieties  of  law-courts  depend: — 
the  persons  from  whom  they  are  appointed,  the  matters  with 
which  they  are  concerned,  and  the  manner  of  their  appointment. 
I  mean,  (i)  are  the  judges  taken  from  all,  or  from  some  only? 
(2)  how  many  kinds  of  law-courts  are  there?  (3)  are  the  judges 
chosen  by  vote  or  by  lot? 

Now  if  all  the  citizens  judge,  in  all  the  different  cases  which  I 
have  distinguished,  they  may  be  appointed  by  vote  or  by  lot,  or 
sometimes  by  lot  and  sometimes  by  vote.  Or  when  a  certain 
class  of  causes  are  tried,  the  judges  who  decide  them  may  be  ap- 
pointed, some  by  vote,  and  some  by  lot.  These  then  are  the  four 
modes  of  appointing  judges  from  the  whole  people,  and  there  will 
be  likewise  four  modes,  if  they  are  elected  from  a  part  only;  for 
they  may  be  appointed  from  some  by  vote  and  judge  in  all  causes; 
or  they  may  be  appointed  from  some  by  lot  and  judge  in  all  causes ; 
or  they  may  be  elected  in  some  cases  by  vote,  and  in  some  cases 
taken  by  lot,  or  some  courts,  even  when  judging  the  same  causes, 


94  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

may  be  composed  of  members  some  appointed  by  vote  and  some 
by  lot.  These  then  are  the  ways  in  which  the  aforesaid  judges 
may  be  appointed. 

Once  more,  the  modes  of  appointment  may  be  combined;  I 
mean,  that  some  may  be  chosen  out  of  the  whole  people,  others 
out  of  some,  some  out  of  both;  for  example,  the  same  tribunal 
may  be  composed  of  some  who  were  elected  out  of  all,  and  of  others 
who  were  elected  out  of  some,  either  by  vote  or  by  lot  or  by  both. 

In  how  many  forms  law-courts  can  be  established  has  now  been 
considered.  The  first  form,  viz.  that  in  which  the  judges  are  taken 
from  all  the  citizens,  and  in  which  all  causes  are  tried,  is  democrati- 
cal;  the  second,  which  is  composed  of  a  few  only  who  try  all  causes, 
oligarchical;  the  third,  in  which  some  courts  are  taken  from  all 
classes,  and  some  from  certain  classes  only,  aristocratical  and 
constitutional. 

6.     Material  Conditions  of  the  Ideal  State  l 

In  what  has  preceded  I  have  discussed  other  forms  of  govern- 
ment; in  what  remains  the  first  point  to  be  considered  is  what 
should  be  the  conditions  of  the  ideal  or  perfect  state ;  for  the  per- 
fect state  cannot  exist  without  a  due  supply  of  the  means  of  life. 
And  therefore  we  must  pre-suppose  many  purely  imaginary  con- 
ditions, but  nothing  impossible.  There  will  be  a  certain  number 
of  citizens,  a  country  in  which  to  place  them,  and  the  like.  As  the 
weaver  or  shipbuilder  or  any  other  artisan  must  have  the  material 
proper  for  his  work  (and  in  proportion  as  this  is  better  prepared, 
so  will  the  result  of  his  art  be  nobler),  so  the  statesman  or  legislator 
must  also  have  the  materials  suited  to  him. 

First  among  the  materials  required  by  the  statesman  is  popula- 
tion: he  will  consider  what  should  be  the  number  and  character 
of  the  citizens,  and  then  what  should  be  the  size  and  character 
of  the  country.  Most  persons  think  that  a  state  in  order  to  be 
happy  ought  to  be  large;  but  even  if  they  are  right,  they  have  no 
idea  what  is  a  large  and  what  a  small  state.  For  they  judge  of 
the  size  of  the  city  by  the  number  of  the  inhabitants;  whereas  they 
ought  to  regard,  not  their  number,  but  their  power.  A  city,  too, 
like  an  individual,  has  a  work  to  do;  and  that  city  which  is  best 
adapted  to  the  fulfilment  of  its  work  is  to  be  deemed  greatest,  in 
the  same  sense  of  the  word  great  in  which  Hippocrates  might  be 
called  greater,  not  as  a  man,  but  as  a  physician,  than  some  one 
else  who  was  taller.  And  even  if  we  reckon  greatness  by  numbers, 
we  ought  not  to  include  everybody,  for  there  must  always  be  in 

1VII,iv-v.    Jowett,  pp.  213-216. 


ARISTOTLE  95 

cities  a  multitude  of  slaves  and  sojourners  and  foreigners;  but  we 
should  include  those  only  who  are  members  of  the  state,  and  who 
form  an  essential  part  of  it.     The  number  of  the  latter  is  a  proof 
of  the  greatness  of  a  city;  but  a  city  which  produces  numerous 
artisans  and  comparatively  few  soldiers  cannot  be  great,  for  a, 
great  city  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  a  populous  one.     More- 
over, experience  shows  that  a  very  populous  city  can  rarely,  if  ever,    / 
be  well  governed;  since  all  cities  which  have  a  reputation  for  good  { 
government  have  a  limit  of  population.     We  may  argue  on  grounds  I 
of  reason,  and  the  same  result  will  follow.     For  law  is  order,  and  \ 
good  law  is  good  order;  but  a  very  great  multitude  cannot  be  order- J 
ly:  to  introduce  order  into  the  unlimited  is  the  work  of  a  divine^ 
power — of  such  a  power  as  holds  together  the  universe.     Beauty 
is  realized  in  number  and  magnitude,  and  the  state  which  combines 
magnitude  with  good  order  must  necessarily  be  the  most  beauti- 
ful.    To  the  size  of  states  there  is  a  limit,  as  there  is  to  other  things, 
plants,  animals,  implements;  for  none  of  these  retain  their  natural 
power  when  they  are  too  large  or  too  small,  but  they  either  wholly 
lose  their  nature,  or  are  spoiled.     For  example,  a  ship  which  is 
only  a  span  long  will  not  be  a  ship  at  all,  nor  a  ship  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  long;  yet  there  may  be  a  ship  of  a  certain  size,  either  too  large 
or  too  small,  which  will  still  be  a  ship,  but  bad  for  sailing.     In  like 
manner  a  state  when  composed  of  too  few  is  not  as  a  state  ought 
to  be,  self-sufficing;  when  of  too  many,  though  self-sufficing  in 
all  mere  necessaries,  it  is  a  nation  and  not  a  state,  being  almost 
incapable  of  constitutional  government.     For  who  can  be  the 
general  of  such  a  vast  multitude,  or  who  the  herald,  unless  he  have 
the  voice  of  a  Stentor? 

A  state  then  only  begins  to  exist  when  it  has  attained  a  population 
sufficient  for  a  good  life  in  the  political  community :  it  may  indeed 
somewhat  exceed  this  number.  But,  as  I  was  saying,  there  must 
be  a  limit.  What  should  be  the  limit  will  be  easily  ascertained  by 
experience.  For  both  governors  and  governed  have  duties  to 
perform;  the  special  functions  of  a  governor  are  to  command  and 
to  judge.  But  if  the  citizens  of  a  state  are  to  judge  and  to  dis- 
tribute offices  according  to  merit,  then  they  must  know  each  other's 
characters;  where  they  do  not  possess  this  knowledge,  both  the 
election  to  offices  and  the  decision  of  lawsuits  will  go  wrong. 
When  the  population  is  very  large  they  are  manifestly  settled  at 
haphazard,  which  clearly  ought  not  to  be.  Besides,  in  an  over- 
populous  state  foreigners  and  metics  will  readily  acquire  the  rights 
of  citizens,  for  who  will  find  them  out?  Clearly  then  the  best 
limit  of  the  population  of  a  state  is  the  largest  number  which 


96  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

suffices  for  the  purposes  of  life,  and  can  be  taken  in  at  a  single 
view.  Enough  concerning  the  size  of  a  city. 

Much  the  same  principle  will  apply  to  the  territory  of  the  state : 
every  one  would  agree  in  praising  the  state  which  is  most  entirely 
self-sufficing;  and  that  must  be  the  state  which  is  all-producing, 
for  to  have  all  things  and  to  want  nothing  is  sufficiency.  In  size 
and  extent  it  should  be  such  as  may  enable  the  inhabitants  to  live 
temperately  and  liberally  in  the  enjoyment  of  leisure.  Whether 
we  are  right  or  wrong  in  laying  down  this  limit  we  will  inquire 
more  precisely  hereafter,  when  we  have  occasion  to  consider  what 
is  the  right  use  of  property  and  wealth;  a  matter  which  is  much 
disputed,  because  men  are  inclined  to  rush  into  one  of  two  extremes, 
some  into  meanness,  others  into  luxury. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  determine  the  general  character  of  the  terri- 
tory which  is  required;  there  are,  however,  some  points  on  which 
military  authorities  should  be  heard;  they  tell  us  that  it  should  be 
difficult  of  access  to  the  enemy,  and  easy  of  egress  to  the  inhabit- 
ants. Further,  we  require  that  the  land  as  well  as  the  inhabitants 
of  whom  we  were  just  now  speaking  should  be  taken  in  at  a  single 
view,  for  a  country  which  is  easily  seen  can  be  easily  protected. 
As  to  the  position  of  the  city,  if  we  could  have  what  we  wish, 
it  should  be  well-situated  in  regard  both  to  sea  or  land.  This 
then  is  one  principle,  that  it  should  be  a  convenient  center  for  the 
protection  of  the  whole  country:  the  other  is,  that  it  should  be 
suitable  for  receiving  the  fruits  of  the  soil,  and  also  for  the  bringing 
in  of  timber  and  any  other  products. 


7.     The  Cause  and  Prevention  of  Revolution  l 

Next  in  order  follow  the  causes  of  revolution  in  states,  how 
many,  and  of  what  nature  they  are;  what  elements  work  ruin  in 
particular  states,  and  out  of  what,  and  into  what  they  mostly 
change;  also  what  are  the  elements  of  preservation  in  states 
generally,  or  in  a  particular  state,  and  by  what  means  each  state 
may  be  best  preserved :  these  questions  remain  to  be  considered. 

In  the  first  place  we  must  assume  as  our  starting-point  that  in 
the  many  forms  of  government  which  have  sprung  up  there  has 
always  been  an  acknowledgment  of  justice  and  proportionate 
equality,  although  mankind  fail  in  attaining  them,  as  indeed  I 
have  already  explained.  Democracy,  for  example,  arises  out  of 
the  notion  that  those  who  are  equal  in  any  respect  are  equal  in 

1  V,  i  (in  part),  ii,  iii  (in  part),  viii-ix  (in  part).  Jowett,  pp.  144-145,  147-148, 
162-165,  168-169. 


ARISTOTLE  97 

all  respects;  because  men  are  equally  free,  they  claim  to  be  abso- 
lutely equal.  Oligarchy  is  based  on  the  notion  that  those  who 
are  unequal  in  one  respect  are  in  all  respects  unequal;  being  un- 
equal, that  is,  in  property,  they  suppose  themselves  to  be  unequal 
absolutely.  The  democrats  think  that  as  they  are  equal  they 
ought  to  be  equal  in  all  things;  while  the  oligarchs,  under  the  idea 
that  they  are  unequal,  claim  too  much,  which  is  one  form  of  in- 
equality. All  these  forms  of  government  have  a  kind  of  justice, 
but,  tried  by  an  absolute  standard,  they  are  faulty;  and,  therefore, 
both  parties,  whenever  their  share  in  the  government  does  not  ac- 
cord with  their  preconceived  ideas,  stir  up  revolution.  Those  who 
excel  in  virtue  have  the  best  right  of  all  to  rebel  (for  they  alone 
can  with  reason  be  deemed  absolutely  unequal),  but  then  they  are 
of  all  men  the  least  inclined  to  do  so.  There  is  also  a  superiority 
which  is  claimed  by  men  of  rank;  for  they  are  thought  noble  be- 
cause they  spring  from  wealthy  and  virtuous  ancestors.  Here 
then,  so  to  speak,  are  opened  the  very  springs  and  fountains  of 
revolution;  and  hence  arise  two  sorts  of  changes  in  governments; 
the  one  affecting  the  constitution,  when  men  seek  to  change  from 
an  existing  form  into  some  other,  for  example,  from  democracy 
into  oligarchy,  and  from  oligarchy  into  democracy,  or  from  either 
of  them  into  constitutional  government  or  aristocracy,  and  con- 
versely; the  other  not  affecting  the  constitution,  when,  without 
disturbing  the  form  of  government,  whether  oligarchy,  or  mon- 
archy, or  any  other,  they  try  to  get  the  administration  into  their 
own  hands.  Further,  there  is  a  question  of  degree;  an  oligarchy, 
for  example,  may  become  more  or  less  oligarchical,  and  a  democ- 
racy more  or  less  democratical ;  and  in  like  manner  the  character- 
istics of  the  other  forms  of  government  may  be  more  or  less  strictly 
maintained.  Or,  the  revolution  may  be  directed  against  a  portion 
of  the  constitution  only,  e.g.  the  establishment  or  overthrow  of 
a  particular  office :  as  at  Sparta  it  is  said, that  Lysander  attempted 
to  overthrow  the  monarchy,  and  king  Pausanias,  the  ephoralty. 

In  considering  how  dissensions  and  political  revolutions  arise, 
we  must  first  of  all  ascertain  the  beginnings  and  causes  of  them 
which  affect  constitutions  generally.  They  may  be  said  to  be 
three  in  number;  and  we  have  nbw  to  give  an  outline  of  each.  We 
want  to  know  (i)  what  is  the  feeling?  and  (2)  what  are  the  motives 
of  those  who  make  them?  (3)  whence  arise  political  disturbances 
and  quarrels?  The  universal  and  chief  cause  of  this  revolutionary 
feeling  has  been  already  mentioned;  viz.  the  desire  of  equality, 
when  men  think  that  they  are  equal  to  others  who  have  more 


98  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

than  themselves;  or,  again,  the  desire  of  inequality  and  superiority, 
when  conceiving  themselves  to  be  superior  they  think  that  they 
have  not  more  but  the  same  or  less  than  their  inferiors ;  pretensions 
which  may  and  may  not  be  just.  Inferiors  revolt  in  order  that 
they  may  be  equal,  and  equals  that  they  may  be  superior.  Such 
is  the  state  of  mind  which  creates  revolutions.  The  motives 
for  making  them  are  the  desire  of  gain  and  honor,  or  the  fear  of 
dishonor  and  loss ;  the  authors  of  them  want  to  divert  punishment 
or  dishonor  from  themselves  or  their  friends.  The  causes  and 
reasons  of  these  motives  and  dispositions  which  are  excited  in 
men,  about  the  things  which  I  have  mentioned,  viewed  in  one  way, 
may  be  regarded  as  seven,  and  in  another  as  more  than  seven. 
Two  of  them  have  been  already  noticed;  but  they  act  in  a  different 
manner,  for  men  are  excited  against  one  another  by  the  love  of 
gain  and  honor — not,  as  in  the  case  which  I  have  just  supposed, 
in  order  to  obtain  them  for  themselves,  but  at  seeing  others,  justly 
or  unjustly,  engrossing  them.  Other  causes  are  insolence,  fear, 
love  of  superiority,  contempt,  disproportionate  increase  in  some 
part  of  the  state;  causes  of  another  sort  are  election  intrigues,  care- 
lessness, neglect  about  trifles,  dissimilarity  of  elements. 

What  share  insolence  and  avarice  have  in  creating  revolutions, 
and  how  they  work,  is  plain  enough.  When  the  magistrates  are 
insolent  and  grasping  they  conspire  against  one  another  and  also 
against  the  constitution  from  which  they  derive  their  power, 
making  their  gains  either  at  the  expense  of  individuals  or  of  the 
public.  It  is  evident,  again,  what  an  influence  honor  exerts  and 
how  it  is  a  cause  of  revolution.  Men  who  are  themselves  dis- 
honored and  who  see  others  obtaining  honors  rise  in  rebellion;  the 
honor  or  dishonor  when  undeserved  is  unjust ;  and  just  when  award- 
ed according  to  merit.  Again,  superiority  is  a  cause  of  revolution 
when  one  or  more  persons  have  a  power  which  is  too  much  for  the 
state  and  the  power  of  the  government;  this  is  a  condition  of 
affairs  out  of  which  there  arises  a  monarchy,  or  a  family  oligarchy. 
And,  therefore,  in  some  places,  as  at  Athens  and  Argos,  they  have 
recourse  to  ostracism.  But  how  much  better  to  provide  from  the 
first  that  there  should  be  no  such  preeminent  individuals  instead 
of  letting  them  come  into  existence  and  then  finding  a  remedy. 

Another  cause  of  revolution  is  fear.  Either  men  have  committed 
wrong,  and  are  afraid  of  punishment,  or  they  are  expecting  to 
suffer  wrong  and  are  desirous  of  anticipating  their  enemy.  Thus 
at  Rhodes  the  notables  conspired  against  the  people  through  fear 
of  the  suits  that  were  brought  against  them.  Contempt  is  also  a 
cause  of  insurrection  and  revolution;  for  example,  in  oligarchies — 


ARISTOTLE  99 

when  those  who  have  no  share  in  the  state  are  the  majority,  they 
revolt,  because  they  think  that  they  are  the  stronger.  Or,  again,  in 
democracies,  the  rich  despise  the  disorder  and  anarchy  of  the  state; 
at  Thebes,  for  example,  where,  after  the  battle  of  (Enophyta,  the 
bad  administration  of  the  democracy  led  to  its  ruin.1 

We  have  next  to  consider  what  means  there  are  of  preserving 
states  in  general,  and  also  in  particular  cases.  In  the  first  place 
it  is  evident  that  if  we  know  the  causes  which  destroy  states,  we 
shall  also  know  the  causes  which  preserve  them;  for  opposites  pro- 
duce opposites,  and  destruction  is  the  opposite  of  preservation. 

In  all  well-attempered  governments  there  is  nothing  which 
should  be  more  jealously  maintained  than  the  spirit  of  obedience 
to  law,  more  especially  in  small  matters;  for  transgression  creeps 
in  unperceived  and  at  last  ruins  the  state,  just  as  the  constant 
recurrence  of  small  expenses  in  time  eats  up  a  fortune.  The 
change  does  not  take  place  all  at  once,  and  therefore  is  not  ob- 
served; the  mind  is  deceived,  as  in  the  fallacy  which  says  that  "if 
each  part  is  little,  then  the  whole  is  little.' '  And  this  is  true  in 
one  way,  but  not  in  another,  for  the  whole  and  the  all  are  not 
little,  although  they  are  made  up  of  littles. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  men  should  guard  against  the  beginning 
of  change,  and  in  the  second  place  they  should  not  rely  upon  the 
political  devices  of  which  I  have  already  spoken,  invented  only 
to  deceive  the  people,  for  they  are  proved  by  experience  to  be  use- 
less. Further  we  note  that  oligarchies  as  well  as  aristocracies 
may  last,  not  from  any  inherent  stability  in  such  forms  of  govern- 
ment, but  because  the  rulers  are  on  good  terms  both  with  the  un- 
enfranchised and  with  the  governing  classes,  not  maltreating  any 
who  are  excluded  from  the  government,  but  introducing  into  it  the 
leading  spirits  among  them.  They  should  never  wrong  the  ambi- 
tious in  a  matter  of  honor,  or  the  common  people  in  a  matter  of 
money;  and  they  should  treat  one  another  and  their  fellow-citizens 
in  a  spirit  of  equality.  The  equality  which  the  friends  of  democ- 
racy seek  to  establish  for  the  multitude  is  not  only  just  but  like- 
wise expedient  among  equals.  Hence,  if  the  governing  class  are 
numerous,  many  democratic  institutions  are  useful;  for  example, 
the  restriction  of  the  tenure  of  offices  to  six  months,  that  all  those 
who  are  of  equal  rank  may  share  in  them.  Indeed,  equals  or  peers 
when  they  are  numerous  become  a  kind  of  democracy,  and  there- 
fore demagogues  are  very  likely  to  arise  among  them,  as  I  have 
already  remarked.  The  short  tenure  of  office  prevents  oligarchies 
1  Aristotle  continues  with  the  analysis  of  the  five  other  causes  of  revolutions. 


100  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

and  aristocracies  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  families;  it  is  not 
easy  for  a  person  to  do  any  great  harm  when  his  tenure  of  office  is 
short,  whereas  long  possession  begets  tyranny  in  oligarchies  and 
democracies.  For  the  aspirants  to  tyranny  are  either  the  principal 
men  of  the  state,  who  in  democracies  are  demagogues  and  in 
oligarchies  members  of  ruling  houses,  or  those  who  hold  great 
offices,  and  have  a  long  tenure  of  them. 

States  are  preserved  when  their  destroyers  are  at  a  distance, 
and  sometimes  also  because  they  are  near,  for  the  fear  of  them 
makes  the  government  keep  in  hand  the  state.  Wherefore  the 
ruler  who  has  a  care  of  the  state  should  invent  terrors,  and  bring 
distant  dangers  near,  in  order  that  the  citizens  may  be  on  their 
guard,  and,  like  sentinels  in  a  night-watch,  never  relax  their  atten- 
tion. He  should  endeavor,  too,  by  help  of  the  laws  to  control  the 
contentions  and  quarrels  of  the  notables,  and  to  prevent  those 
who  have  not  hitherto  taken  part  in  them  from  being  drawn  in. 
No  ordinary  man  can  discern  the  beginning  of  evil,  but  only  the 
true  statesman. 

As  to  the  change  produced  in  oligarchies  and  constitutional 
governments  by  the  alteration  of  the  qualification,  when  this 
arises,  not  out  of  any  variation  in  the  census  but  only  out  of  the 
increase  of  money,  it  is  well  to  compare  the  general  valuation  of 
property  with  that  of  past  years,  annually  in  those  cities  in  which 
the  census  is  taken  annually,  and  in  larger  cities  every  third  or 
fifth  year.  If  the  whole  is  many  times  greater  or  many  times  less 
than  when  the  rates  were  fixed  at  the  previous  census,  there  should 
be  power  given  by  law  to  raise  or  lower  the  qualification  as  the 
amount  is  greater  or  less.  Where  in  the  absence  of  any  such 
provision  the  standard  is  raised,  a  constitutional  government 
passes  into  an  oligarchy,  and  an  oligarchy  is  narrowed  to  a  rule  of 
families;  where  the  standard  is  lowered,  constitutional  government 
becomes  democracy,  and  oligarchy  either  constitutional  govern- 
ment or  democracy. 

It  is  a  principle  common  to  democracy,  oligarchy,  and  every 
other  form  of  government  not  to  allow  the  disproportionate  in- 
crease of  any  citizen,  but  to  give  moderate  honor  for  a  long  time 
rather  than  great  honor  for  a  short  time.  For  -men  are  easily 
spoiled;  not  every  one  can  bear  prosperity.  But  if  this  rule  is 
not  observed,  at  any  rate  the  honors  which  are  given  all  at  once 
should  be  taken  away  by  degrees  and  not  all  at  once.  Especially 
should  the  laws  provide  against  any  one  having  too  much  power, 
whether  derived  from  friends  or  money;  if  he  has,  he  and  his  fol- 
lowers should  be  sent  out  of  the  country.  And  since  innovations 


ARISTOTLE  101 

creep  in  through  the  private  life  of  individuals,  there  ought  to  be 
a  magistracy  which  will  have  an  eye  to  those  whose  life  is  not  in 
harmony  with  the  government,  whether  oligarchy  or  democracy 
or  any  other.  And  for  a  like  reason  an  increase  of  prosperity  in 
any  part  of  the  state  should  be  carefully  watched.  The  proper 
remedy  for  this  evil  is  always  to  give  the  management  of  affairs 
and  offices  of  state  to  opposite  elements;  such  opposites  are  the 
virtuous  and  the  many,  or  the  rich  and  the  poor.  Another  way 
is  to  combine  the  poor  and  the  rich  in  one  body,  or  to  increase  the 
middle  class :  thus  an  end  will  be  put  to  the  revolutions  which  arise 
from  inequality. 

But  above  all  every  state  should  be  so  administered  and  so 
regulated  by  law  that  its  magistrates  cannot  possibly  make 
money.  In  oligarchies  special  precautions  should  be  used  against 
this  evil.  For  the  people  do  not  take  any  great  offence  at  being 
kept  out  of  the  government — indeed  they  are  rather  pleased  than 
otherwise  at  having  leisure  for  their  private  business — but  what 
irritates  them  is  to  think  that  their  rulers  are  stealing  the  public 
money;  then  they  are  doubly  annoyed;  for  they  lose  both  honor 
and  profit.  If  office  brought  no  profit,  then  and  then  only  could 
democracy  and  aristocracy  be  combined;  for  both  notables  and 
people  might  have  their  wishes  gratified.  /  All  would  be  able  to 
hold  office,  which  is  the  aim  of  democracy,  and  the  notables  would 
be  magistrates,  which  is  the  aim  of  aristocracy/  And  this  result 
may  be  accomplished  when  there  is  no  possibility  of  making  money 
out  of  the  offices ;  for  the  poor  will  not  want  to  have  them  when  there 
is  nothing  to  be  gained  from  them — they  would  rather  be  attend- 
ing to  their  own  concerns;  and  the  rich,  who  do  not  want  money 
from  the  public  treasury,  will  be  able  to  take  them;  and  so  the 
poor  will  keep  to  their  work  and  grow  rich,  and  the  notables  will  not 
be  governed  by  the  lower  class. 

But  of  all  the  things  which  I  have  mentioned  that  which  most 
contributes  to  the  permanence  of  constitutions  is  the  adaptation 
of  education  to  the  form  of  government,  and  yet  in  our  own  day 
this  principle  is  universally  neglected.  The  best  laws,  though 
sanctioned  by  every  citizen  of  the  state,  will  be  of  no  avail  unless 
the  young  are  trained  by  habit  and  education  in  the  spirit  of  the 
constitution,  if  the  laws  are  democratical,  democratically,  or 
oligarchically,  if  the  laws  are  oligarchical.  For  there  may  be  a  want 
of  self -discipline  in  states  as  well  as  in  individuals.  Now,  to  have 
been  educated  in  the  spirit  of  the  constitution  is  not  to  perform 
the  actions  in  which  oligarchs  or  democrats  delight,  but  those  by 


102  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

which  the  existence  of  an  oligarchy  or  of  a  democracy  is  made 
possible.  Whereas  among  ourselves  the  sons  of  the  ruling  class 
in  an  oligarchy  live  in  luxury,  but  the  sons  of  the  poor  are  hardened 
by  exercise  and  toil,  and  hence  they  are  both  more  inclined  and 
better  able  to  make  a  revolution.  And  in  democracies  of  the  more 
extreme  type  there  has  arisen  a  false  idea  of  freedom  which  is 
contradictory  to  the  true  interests  of  the  state.  For  two  prin- 
ciples are  characteristic  of  democracy,  the  government  of  the 
majority  and  freedom.  Men  think  that  what  is  just  is  equal; 
and  that  equality  is  the  supremacy  of  the  popular  will;  and  that 
freedom  and  equality  mean  the  doing  what  a  man  likes.  In  such 
democracies  every  one  lives  as  he  pleases,  or  in  the  words  of 
Euripides,  " according  to  his  fancy."  But  this  is  all  wrong;  men 
should  not  think  it  slavery  to  live  according  to  the  rule  of  the 
constitution;  for  it  is  their  salvation. 


SELECTED   REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

Zeller,  Aristotle  and  the  Earlier  Peripatetics,  Vol.  I,  ch.  i. 
Grote,  Aristotle,  ch.  i. 

Barker,  Political  Thought  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  pp.  208-218. 
Blakesley,  A  Life  of  Aristotle. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  Ancient  and  Medieval,  ch.  iii. 

Barker,  Political  Thought  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  pp.  218-496. 

Pollock,  History  of  the  Science  of  Politics,  pp.  15-29. 

Zeller,  Aristotle  and  the  Earlier  Peripatetics,  Vol.  I,  ch.  iv;  Vol.  II,  chs.  xii 

and  xiii. 

Grote,  Aristotle,  chs.  xiii  and  xiv,  and  Appendix  I. 
Willoughby,  Political  Theories  of  the  Ancient  World,  ch.  xi. 
Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  I,  pp.  165-229. 
Bradley,  Aristotle's  Conception  of  the  State,  in  Hellenica,  pp.  166-222. 
Congreve,  The  Politics  of  Aristotle,  "Introduction." 

Loos,  Studies  in  the  Politics  of  Aristotle  and  the  Republic  of  Plato,  pp.  17-176. 
Lang,  The  Politics  of  Aristotle,  "Introductory  Essays." 
Oncken,  Die  Staatslehre  des  Aristotles. 
Henkel,  Studien  zur  Geschichte  der  griechischen  Lehre  vom  Staat,  pp.  74-97. 


POLYBIUS 


HI.     POLYBIUS  (204-122  B.C.) 
INTRODUCTION 

The  fame  of  Polybius,  a  Greek  author,  rests  upon  his  history 
of  Rome;  his  theoretical  discussion  of  government  is  incidental  to 
his  analysis  of  the  Roman  constitution  which  that  work  contains. 
Polybius  was  born  in  Megalopolis,  in  Arcadia,  the  leading  state 
of  the  Achaean  League.  He  was  there  one  of  a  group  of  statesmen 
who  directed  the  policy  of  the  league  during  the  Roman  invasion 
which  ended  Macedonian  power  and  brought  Greece  under 
Roman  dominion.  In  that  period  he  was  of  the  moderate  party, 
which  sought  primarily  to  maintain  for  the  league  a  negative 
attitude  towards  Rome.  With  the  accomplishment  of  the  Roman 
conquest  the  eminent  men  of  that  party,  suffering  under  false 
charges  made  by  the  radical  pro-Roman  leaders  of  the  league, 
were  taken  as  hostages  to  Rome;  here  they  lived  rather  as  dis- 
tinguished visitors  than  as  prisoners. 

In  Italy  the  experience  and  ability  of  Polybius  were  recognized 
and  utilized.  He  was  sent  to  Greece  on  a  mission  of  mediation 
between  Rome  and  the  Achaeans.  Though  this  mission  was  fruit- 
less he  was  subsequently  representative  of  the  Roman  government 
in  the  reconstruction  of  Greece.  Most  of  his  later  life,  however, 
he  spent  in  scholarly  leisure,  enjoying  the  friendship  and  patronage 
of  Roman  statesmen — particularly  of  Scipio  Africanus,  the  young- 
er. These  facilities  he  put  to  good  purpose  by  devoting  them  to 
travel,  observation,  and  the  collection  of  materials  for  a  history 
of  Rome. 

ff  CjThe  motive  of  his  History  was  to  explain  the  greatness  of  Rome, 
to  trace  the  steps — from  the  second  Punic  War  to  the  conquest 
of  Macedonia — through  which  Rome  became  the  ruling  power  of 
the  world,  and  to  describe  the  manner  in  which  her  control  over 
this  vast  dominion  had  been  exercised. /Of  this  work  there  are 
extant  the  first  five  books  entire  and  the  other  thirty-five  books  in 
fragments.  In  the  part  of  the  sixth  book  that  is  preserved  the 
author  sets  forth  certain  principles  of  government,  with  a  view 

105 


106  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

to  indicating  what  elements  of  the  governmental  organization 
of  Rome  had  ^nabled  it  to  acquire  and  maintain  its  extensive 
sovereignty.1 //He  there  presents  a  theory  of  tr-,3  origin  of  political 
society  and  an  interpretation  of  its  periodic  revolution  through  a 
cycle  of  six  forms,  in  alternate  succession  of  good  and  bad  forms. 
Upon  this  basis  he  analyzes  the  constitution  of  the  Roman  Republic 
in  such  a  way  as  to  show  that  through  its  combination  of  elements 
*  of  each  of  the  three  good  forms — in  other  words,  through  its  system 
of  checks  and  balances,  it  furnishes  a  type  of  mixed  constitution 
which  is  secure  against  the  decay  natural  to  any  one  of  the  simple 


types.tf 


READINGS  FROM  THE  HISTORIES2 


1.     The  Forms  of  Government  and  the  Cycle  of  Constitutional 

Revolution  3 

I  am  aware  that  some  will  be  at  a  loss  to  account  for  my 
interrupting  the  course  of  my  narrative  for  the  sake  of  entering 
upon  the  following  disquisition  on  the  Roman  constitution.  But 
I  think  that  I  have  already  in  many  passages  made  it  fully  evident 
that  this  particular  branch  of  my  work  was  one  of  the  necessities 
imposed  on  me  by  the  nature  of  my  original  design  ;  and  I  pointed 
this  out  with  special  clearness  in  the  preface  which  explained  the 
scope  of  my  history.  I  there  stated  that  the  feature  of  my  work 
which  was  at  once  the  best  in  itself,  and  the  most  instructive  to 
the  students  of  it,  was  that  it  would  enable  them  to  know  and  fully 
realize  in  what  manner,  and  under  what  kind  of  constitution,  it 
came  about  that  nearly  the  whole  world  fell  under  the  power  of 
Rome  in  somewhat  less  than  fifty-three  years,  —  an  event  certainly 
without  precedent.  This  being  my  settled  purpose,  I  could  see 
no  more  fitting  period  than  the  present  for  making  a  pause,  and 
examining  the  truth  of  the  remarks  about  to  be  made  on  this  con- 
stitution. In  private  life  if  you  wish  to  satisfy  yourself  as  to  the 
badness  or  goodness  of  particular  persons,  you  would  not,  if  you 
wish  to  get  a  genuine  test,  examine  their  conduct  at  a  time  of 
uneventful  repose,  but  in  the  hour  of  brilliant  success  or  conspicu- 
ous reverse.  iV  For  the  true  test  of  a  perfect  man  is  the  power  of 


1  Cf.  Strachan-Davidson,  Polybius  (in  Evelyn  Abbott's  Hellenica),  p.  411. 

2  The  selections  are  taken  from  the  translation  by  Evelyn  S.  Schuckburgh; 
London  and  New  York,  1889.    Macmillan  and  Company. 

3Bk.  VI,  §§1-9.    Schuckburgh,  Vol.  I,  pp.  458-466. 


POL  YB I US  107 

bearing  with  spirit  and  dignity  violent  changes  of  fortunes  An 
examination  of  a  constitution  should  be  conducted  in  the?  same 
way:  and  therefore  being  unable  to  find  in  our  day  a  more  rapid 
or  more  signal  change  than  that  which  has  happened  to  Rome, 
I  reserved  my  disquisition  for  this  place.  .  .  . 

What  is  really  educational  and  beneficial  to  students  of  history 
is  the  clear  view  of  the  causes  of  events,  and  thejconsequent  power 
of  choosing  the  better  policy  in  a  particular  case,  jj^ow  in  every 
practical  undertaking  by  a  state  we  must  regard  as  the^most  power- 
ful agent  for  success  or  failure  the  form  of  its  constitution;  for 
from  this  as  from  a  fountain-head  all  conceptions  and  plans  of 
action  not  only  proceed,  but  attain  their  consummation.  1| .  . 

Of  the  Greek  Republics,  which  have  again  and  again  risen 
to  greatness  and  fallen  into  insignificance,  it  is  not  difficult  to 
speak,  whether  we  recount  their  past  history  or  venture  an  opinion 
on  their  future.  For  to  report  what  is  already  known  is  an  easy 
task,  nor  is  it  hard  to  guess  what  is  to  come  from  our  knowledge 
of  what  has  been.  But  in  regard  to  the  Romans  it  is  neither  an 
easy  matter  to  describe  their  present  state,  owing  to  the  com- 
plexity of  their  constitution ;  nor  to  speak  with  confidence  of  their 
future,  from  our  inadequate  acquaintance  with  their  peculiar 
institutions  in  the  past  whether  affecting  their  public  or  their 
private  life.  It  will  require,  then,  no  ordinary  attention  and  study 
to  get  a  clear  and  comprehensive  conception  of  the  distinctive 
features  of  this  constitution. 

Now,  it  is  undoubtedly  the  case  that  most  of  those  who  profess 
to  give  us  authoritative  instruction  on  this  subject  distinguish 
three  kinds  of  constitutions,  which  they  designatef/kingship, 
aristocracy r ..  democracy.  But  in  my  opinion  the  question  might 
fairly  be  put  to  them,  whether  they  name  these  as  being,  the 
only  ones,  or  as  the  best.  In  either  case  I  think  they  are  wrong. 
For  it  is  plain  that  we  must  regard  as  the  .best  constitutionjthat  \  ^^ 
which  partakes  of  all  these  three  elements.]^  And  this  is  no  mere 
assertion,  but  has  been  proved  by  the  example  of  Lycurgus,  who 
was  the  first  to  construct  a  constitution — that  of  Sparta — on 
this  principle.  Nor  can  we  admit  that  these  are  the  only  forms; 
for  we  have  had  before  now  examples  of  absolute  and  tyrannical 
forms  of  government,  which,  while  differing  as  widely  as  possible 
from  kingship,  yet  appear  to  have  some  points  of  resemblance  to 
it;  on  which  account  all  absolute  rulers  falsely  assume  and  use,  as 
far  as  they  can,  the  title  of  king.  Again  there  have  been  many 
instances  of  oligarchical  governments  having  in  appearance  some 
analogy  to  aristocracies,  which  are,  if  I  may  say  so,  as  different 


108  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

from  them  as  it  is  possible  to  be.  The  same  also  holds  good  about 
democracy. 

|jj  will  illustrate  the  truth  of  what  I  say.  We_cannot  hold 
every  absolute  government  to  be  a  kingship,  but  only  that  which 
is  accepted  voluntarily,  and  is  directed  by  an  appeal  to  reason 
rather  than  to  fear  and  force.  Nor  again  is  every  oligarchy  to  be 
regarded  as  an  aristocracy;  the  latter  exists  only  where  the  power 
is  wielded  by  the  justest  and  wisest  men  selected  on  their  merits, 
Similarly,  it  is  not  enough  to  constitute  a  democracy  that  the  whole 
crowd  of  citizens  should  have  the  right  to  do  whatever  they  wish 
or  propose.  But  where  reverence  to  the  gods,  succor  of  parents, 
respect  to  elders,  obedience  to  laws,  are  traditional  and  habitual, 
in  such  communities  if  the  will  of  the  majority  prevail,  we  may 
speak  of  the  form  of  government  as  a  democracy.  ^So  then  we 
enumerate  six  forms  of  government, — the  three  commonly  spoken 
of  which  I  have  just  mentioned,  anctfthree  more  allied  forms,  I 
mean  despotism,  oligarchy  and  mob-rule.  The  first  of  these  arises 
without  artificial  aid  and  in  the  natural  order  of  events.  Next 
to  this,  and  produced  from  it  by  the  aid  of  art  and  adjustment, 
comes  kingship:  which  degenerating  into  the  evil  form  allied  to  it, 
by  which  I  mean  tyranny,  both  are  once  more  destroyed  and 
aristocracy  produced.  Again  the  latter  being  in  the  course  of 
nature  perverted  to  oligarchy,  and  the  people  passionately  avenging 
the  unjust  acts  of  their  rulers,  democracy  comes  into  existence; 
which  again  by  its  violence  and  contempt  of  law  becomes  sheer 
mob-rule^  No  clearer  proof  of  the  truth  of  what  I  say  could  be 
obtained  than  by  a  careful  observation  of  the  natural  origin, 
genesis,  and  decadence  of  these  several  forms  of  government. 
For  it  is  only  by  seeing  distinctly  how  each  of  them  is  produced 
that  a  distinct  view  can  also  be  obtained  of  its  growth,  zenith, 
and  decadence,  and  the  time,  circumstance,  and  place  in  which 
each  of  these  may  be  expected  to  recur.  This  method  I  have  as- 
sumed to  be  especially  applicable  to  the  Roman  constitution, 
because  its  origin  and  growth  have  from  the  first  followed  natural 
causes. 

Now  the  natural  laws  which  regulate  the  merging  of  one 
form  of  government  into  another  are  perhaps  discussed  with 
greater  accuracy  by  Plato  and  some  other  philosophers.  But 
their  treatment,  from  its  intricacy  and  exhaustiveness,  is  only 
within  the  capacity  of  a  few.  I  will  therefore  endeavor  to  give 
a  summary  of  the  subject,  just  so  far  as  I  suppose  it  to  fall  within 
the  scope  of  a  practical  history  and  the  intelligence  of  ordinary 
people.  For  if  my  exposition  appear  in  any  way  inadequate,  owing 


POL  YB I US  109 

to  the  general  terms  in  which  it  is  expressed,  the  details  contained 
in  what  is  immediately  to  follow  will  amply  atone  for  what  is 
left  for  the  present  unsolved. 

What  is  the  origin  then  -of  a  constitution,  and  whence  is  it  pro- 
duced? Suppose  that  from  floods,  pestilences,  failure  of  crops, 
or  some  such  causes  the  race  of  man  is  reduced  almost  to  extinc- 
tion. Such  things  we  are  told  have  happened,  and  it  is  reasonable 
to  think  will  happen  again.  Suppose  accordingly  all  knowledge 
of  social  habits  and  arts  to  have  been  lost.  Suppose  that  from  the 
survivors,  as  from  seeds,  the  race  of  man  to  have  again  multiplied. 
In  that  case  I  presume  they  would T  like  the  animals^  herd  together; 
for  it  is  but  reasonable  to  suppose  that  bodily  weakness  would 
induce  them  to  seek  those  of  their  own  kind  to  herd  with.  And  in 
that  case,  too,  as  with  the  animals,  he  who  was  superior  to  the  rest 
in  strength  of  body  or  courage  of  soul  would  lead  and  rule  them. 
For  what  we  see  happen  in  the  case  of  animals  that  are  without  the 
faculty  of  reason,  such  as  bulls,  goats,  and  cocks, — among  whom 
there  can  be  no  dispute  that  the  strongest  take  the  lead, — that 
we  must  regard  as  in  the  truest  sense  the  teaching  of  nature. 
Originally  then  it  is  probable  that  the  condition  of  life  among  men 
was  this, — herding  together  like  animals  and  following  the  strong- 
est and  bravest  ^s  leaders.  The  limit  of  this  authority  would  be 
physical  strength,  and  the  name  we  should  give  it  would  be  despot- 
ism. But  as  soon  as  the  idea  of  family  ties  and  social  relation  has 
arisen  amongst  such  agglomerations  of  men,  then  is  born  also  the 
idea  pf  kmgship^.^n,d  then  for  the  first  time  mankind  conceives 
the  noHon  of  goodness  and  justice  and  their  reverse.  V^" 

The  way  in  which  such  conceptions  originate  ana  come  into 
existence  is  this:  The  intercourse  of  the  sexes  is  an  instinct  of 
nature,  and  the  result  is  the  birth  of  children.  Now,  if  any  one 
of  these  children  who  have  been  brought  up,  when  arrived  at 
maturity,  is  ungrateful  and  makes  no  return  to  those  by  whom  he 
was  nurtured,  but  on  the  contrary  presumes  to  injure  them  by  word 
and  deed,  it  is  plain  that  he  will  probably  offend  and  annoy  such 
as  are  present,  and  have  seen  the  care  and  trouble  bestowed  by 
the  parents  on  the  nurture  and  bringing  up  of  their  children.  For 
seeing  that  men  differ  from  the  other  animals  in  being  the  only 
creatures  possessed  of  reasoning  powers,  it  is  clear  that  such  a 
difference  of  conduct  is  not  likely  to  escape  their  observation; 
but  that  they  will  remark  it  when  it  occurs,  and  express  their 
displeasure  on  the  spot :  because  they  will  have  an  eye  to  the  future, 
and  will  reason  on  the  likelihood  of  the  same  occurring  to  each  of 
themselves.  Again,  if  a  man  has  been  rescued  or  helped  in  an  hour 


J 


110  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

of  danger,  anjxynstead  of  showing  gratitude  to  his  preserver, 
seeks  to  do  Mmharm,  it  is  clearly  probable  that  the  rest  will  be 
displeased  and  offended  with  him,  when  they  know  it:  sympathiz- 
ing with  their  neighbor  and  imagining  themselves  in  his  case. 
Hence  arises  a  notion  in  every  breast  of  the  meaning  and  theory  of 
duty,  which  is  in  fact  the  beginning  and  end  of  justice,  similarly, 
again,  when  any  one  man  stands  out  as  the  champion  of  all  in  a 
time  of  danger,  and  braves  with  firm  courage  the  onslaught  of 
the  most  powerful  wild  beasts,  it  is  probable  that  such  a  man  would 
meet  with  marks  of  favor  and  preeminence  from  the  common 
people;  while  he  who  acted  in  a  contrary  way  would  fall  under  their 

I  contempt  and  dislike,  prom  this,  once" more,  it  is  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  there  would  arise  in  the  minds  of  the  multitude 
a  theory  of  the  disgraceful  and  the  honorable,  and  of  the  difference 
between  them;  and  that  one  should  be  sought  and  imitated  for 
its  advantages,  the  other  shunned,  j  When,  therefore,  the  leading 
and  most  powerful  man  among  his  people  ever  encourages  such 
persons  in  accordance  with  the  popular  sentiment,  and  thereby 
assumes  in  the  eyes  of  his  subjects  the  appearance  of  being  the  dis- 
tributor to  each  man  according  to  his  deserts,  they  no  longer  obey 
him  and  support  his  rule  from  fear  of  violence,  but  rather  from 
conviction  of  its  utility,  however  old  he  may  be,  rallying  round 
him  with  one  heart  and  soul,  and  fighting  against  all  who  form 
designs  against  his  government  Ik /In  this  way  be  becomes  a.  king 
instead  of  a  despot  by  imperceptfole  degrees,  reason  tiavmg  ousted 
brute  courage  and  bodily  strength  from  their  supremacyft 

This  then  is  the  natural  process  of  formation  aii*ong  man- 
kind of  the  notion  of  goodness  and  justice,  and  -their  opposites; 
and  this  is  the  origin  and  genesis  of  genuine  kingship :  for  people  do 
not  only  keep  up  the  government  of  such  men  personally,  but  for 
their  descendants  also  for  many  generations;  from  the  conviction 
that  those  who  are  born  from  and  educated  by  men  of  this  kind 
will  have  principles  also  like  theirs.  But  if  they  subsequently 
become  displeased  with  their  descendants,  they  do  not  any  longer 
decide  their  choice  of  rulers  and  kings  by  their  physical  strength 
or  brute  courage;  but  by  the  differences  of  their  intellectual  and 
reasoning  faculties,  from  practical  experience  of  the  decisive  im- 
portance of  such  a  distinction.  In  old  times,  then,  those  who 
were  once  thus  selected,  and  obtained  this  office,  grew  old  in  their 
royal  functions,  making  magnificent  strongholds  and  surrounding 
them  with  walls  and  extending  their  frontiers,  partly  for  the 
security  of  their  subjects,  and  partly  to  provide  them  with  abund- 
ance of  the  necessaries  of  life;  and  while  engaged  in  these  works 


POL  YB I US  111 

they  were  exempt  from  all  vituperation  or  jealousy;  because  they 
did  not  make  their  distinctive  dress,  food,  or  drink,  at  all  con- 
spicuous, but  lived  very  much  like  the  rest,  and  joined  in  the  every- 
day employments  of  the  common  people.  ijFgut  when  their  royal 
power  became  hereditary  in  their  family,  afTd  they  found  every 
necessary  for  security  ready  to  their  hands,  as  well  as  more  than 
was  necessary  for  their  personal  support,  then  they  gave  the  rein 
to  their  appetites;  imagined  that  rulers  must  needs  wear  different 
clothes  from  those  of  subjects,  have  different  and  elaborate 
luxuries  of  the  table,  and  must  even  seek  sensual  indulgence, 
however  unlawful  the  source,  without  fear  of  deniaO  t These 
things  having  given  rise  in  the  one-  case  to  jealousy  anpt  offence,.  *^ 
in  the  other  to  outburst  of  hatred  and  passionate  resentment,  the 
kingship  became  a  tyrann)jn  the  first  step  in  disintegration  was 
taken;  and  plots  began  torbe  formed  against  the  government, 
which  did  noTnoW  proceed  from  the  worst  men  but  from  the  no-_ 
blest,  most  high-minded,  and  most  courageous,  because  these,  are 
the  men  who  can  least  submit  to  the  tyrannical  acts  of  their 
rulers. 

But  as  soon  as  the  people  got  leaders,  they  co-operated  with 
them  against  the  dynasty  for  the  reasonsjfc  have  mentioned ;  and 
then  kingship  and  despotism  were  alike  entirely  abolished,  and 
aristocracy  once  more  began  to  revive  and  start  afresh.  For  in 
tHeir  immediate  gratitude  to  those  who  had  deposed  the  despots, 
people  employed  them  as  leaders,  and  intrusted  their  interests 
to  them;  who,  looking  upon  this  charge  at  first  as  a  great  privilege, 
made  the  public  advantage  their  chief  concern,  and  conducted  all 
kinds  of  business,  public  or  private,  with  diligence  and  caution. 
But  when  the  sons  of  those  men  received  the  same  position  of 
authority  from  their  fathers, — having  had  no  experience  of  mis-  • 
fortunes,  and  none  at  all  of  civil  equality  and  freedom  of  speech, 
but  having  been  bred  up  from  the  first  under  the  shadow  of  their 
fathers'  authority  and  lofty  position, — some  of  them  gave  them- 
selves up  with  passion  to  avarice  and  unscrupulous  love  of  money, 
others  to  drinking  and  the  boundless  debaucheries  which  accom- 
pany it,  and  others  to  the  violation  of  women  or  the  forcible 
appropriation  of  boys;  and  so  they  turned  an  aristocracy  into  an 
oligarchy M  But  it  was  not  long  before  they  roused  in  the  minds 
of  the  people  the  same  feelings  as  before;  and  their  fall  therefore 
was  very  like  the  disaster  which  befel  the  tyrants. 

For  no  sooner  had  the  knowledge  of  the  jealousy  and  hatred 
existing  in  the  citizens  against  them  emboldened  some  one  to 
oppose  the  government  by  word  or  deed,  than  he  was  sure  to  find 


112  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  whole  people  ready  and  prepared  to  take  his  side.  Having 
then  got  rid  of  these  rulers  by  assassination  or  exile,  they  do  not 
venture  to  set  up  a  king  again,  being  still  in  terror  of  the  injustice 
to  which  this  led  before;  nor  dare  they  intrust  the  common  in- 
terests again  to  more  than  one,  considering  the  recent  example 
of  their  misconduct:  and  therefore!  as  the  only  sound  hope  left 
them  is  that  which  depends  upon  themselves,  they  are  driven  to 
take  refuge  in  that ;  and  so  changed  the  constitution  from  an  oli- 
'  garchy  to  a  democracy,  and  took  upon  themselves  the  superintend- 

yence  and  charge  of  the  state.  And  as  long  as  any  survive  who 
have  had  experience  of  oligarchical  supremacy  and  domination, 
they  regard  their  present  constitution  as  a  blessing,  and  hold 
equality  and  freedom  as  of  the  utmost  value.  But  as  soon  as  a 
new  generation  has  arisen,  and  the  democracy  has  descended 
to  their  children's  children,  long  association  weakens  their  value 
for  equality  and  freedom,  and  some  seek  to  become  more  power- 
ful than  the  ordinary  citizens;  and  the  most  liable  to  this  tempta- 
tion are  the  richj^  So  when  they  begin  to  be  fond  of  office,  and 
find  themselves  unable  to  obtain  it  by  their  own  unassisted  efforts 
and  their  own  merits,  they  ruin  their  estates,  while  enticing  and 
corrupting  the  common  people  in  every  possible  way.f  By  which 
means  when,  in  their  senseless  mania  for  reputation,  They  have 
made  the  populace  ready  and  greedy  to  receive  bribes,  the^virtue 
of  democracy  is  destroyed,  and  it  is  transformed  into  a  government 
.of  violence  and  the  strong  hand.  ^  For  the  mob,  habituated  to 
feed  at  the  expense  of  others,  and  TO  have  its  hopes  of  a  livelihood 
in  the  property  of  its  neighbors,  as  soon  as  it  has  got  a  leader 
sufficiently  ambitious  and  daring,  being  excluded  by  poverty  from 
the  sweets  of  civil  honors,  produces  a  reign  of  mere  violence.  ^Then 
.  come  tumultuous  assemblies,  massacres,  banishments,  redivisions 
of  land;  until,  after  losing  all  trace  of  civilization,  it  has  once  more 
found  a  master  and  a  despot^ 

This  is  the  regular  cycle  or  constitutional  revolutions,  and  the 
natural  order  in  which  constitutions  change,  are  transformed,  and 
return  again  to  their  original  stage.  If  a  man  have  a  clear  grasp  of 
these  principles  he  may  perhaps  make  a  mistake  as  to  the  dates  at 
which  this  or  that  will  happen  to  a  particular  constitution;  but 
he  will  rarely  be  entirely  mistaken  as  to  the  stage  of  growth  or 
decay  at  which  it  has  arrived,  or  as  to  the  point  at  which  it  will 
undergo  some  revolutionary  change.  However,  it  is  in  the  case 
of  the  Roman  constitution  that  this  method  of  inquiry  will  most 
fully  teach  us  its  formation,  its  growth,  and  zenith,  as  well  as  the 
changes  awaiting  it  in  the  future;  for  this,  if  any  constitution  ever 


POLYBIUS  113 

did,  owed,  as  I  said  just  now,  its  original  foundation  and  growth 
to  natural  causes,  and  to  natural  causes  will  owe  its  decay.  My 
subsequent  narrative  will  be  the  best  illustration  of  what  I  say. 

2.     The  System  of  Checks  and  Balances  l 

As  for  the  Roman  constitution,  it  had  three  elements,  each  of 
them  possessing  sovereign  powers;  and  their  respective  share  of 
power  in  the  whole  state  had  been  regulated, with  such  a  scrupu- 
lous regard  to  equality  and  equilibrium,  that  no  one  could  say 
for  certain,  not  even  a  native,  whether  the  constitution  as  a  whole 
were  an  aristocracy  or  democracy  or  despotism!  And  no  wonder: 
for  if  we  confine  our  observation  to  the  power>e£  the  consuls  we 
should  be_inclinedLto  regard  it  as_desgotic;.  if  that  of  the  -senate, 
as"arisTocratic;  and  if  finally  one  looks  at  the  power  possessed  by 
the  people  it  would  seem  a  clear  case  of  democracyx  What  the 
exact  powers  of  these  several  parts  were,  and  still/ with  slight 
modifications,  are,  I  will  now  state. 

The  consul^  before  leading  out  the  legions,  remain  in  Rome 
and  are  supreme  masters  of  the  administration.  All  other  magis- 
trates, except  the  tribunes,  are  under  them  and  take  their  orders. 
They  introduce  foreign  ambassadors  to  the  senate;  bring  matters 
requiring  deliberation  before  it;  and  see  to  the  execution  of  its 
decrees.  If,  again,  there  are  any  matters  of  state  which  require 
the  authorization  of  the  people,  it  is  their  business  to  see  to  them, 
to  summon  the  popular  meetings,  to  bring  the  proposals  before 
them,  and  to  carry  out  the  decrees  of  the  majority.  In  the  prep- 
arations for  war  also,  and  in  a  word,  in  the  entire  administration 
of  a  campaign,  they  have  all  but  absolute  power.  It  is  competent 
to  them  to  impose  on  the  allies  such  levies  as  they  think  good,  to 
appoint  the  military  tribunes,  to  make  up  the  roll  for  soldiers, 
and  select  those  that  are  suitable.  Besides  they  have  absolute 
power  of  inflicting  punishment  on  all  who  are  under  their  command 
while  on  active  service:  and  they  have  authority  to  expend  as  much 
of  the  public  money  as  they  choose,  being  accompanied  by  a 
quaestor  who  is  entirely  at  their  orders.  A  survey  of  these  powers 
would  in  fact  justify  our  describing  the  constitution  as  despotic, — 
a  clear  case  of  royal  government.  Nor  will  it  affect  the  truth 
of  my  description,  if  any  of  the  institutions  I  have  described  are 
changed  in  our  time,  or  in  that  of  our  posterity:  and  the  same 
remarks  apply  to  what  follows. 

The  senate  has  first  of  all  the  control  of  the  treasury,  and 

1  Bk.  VI,  §§  11-18.    Schuckburgh,  Vol.  I,  pp.  468-474. 


114  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

regulates  the  receipts  and  disbursements  alike.  For  the  quaestors 
cannot  issue  any  public  money  for  the  various  departments  of  the 
state  without  a  decree  of  the  senate,  except  for  the  service  of  the 
consuls.  The  senate  controls  also  what  is  by  far  the  largest  and 
most  important  expenditure,  that,  namely,  which  is  made  by  the 
censors  every  lustrum  for  the  repair  or  construction  of  public 
buildings;  this  money  cannot  be  obtained  by  the  censors  except 
by  the  grant  of  the  senate.  Similarly  all  crimes  committed  in 
Italy  requiring  a  public  investigation,  such  as  treason,  conspiracy, 
poisoning,  or  wilful  murder,  are  in  the  hands  of  the  senate.  Be- 
sides, if  any  individual  or  state  among  the  Italian  allies  requires 
a  controversy  to  be  settled,  a  penalty  to  be  assessed,  help  or  pro- 
tection to  be  afforded, — all  this  is  the  province  of  the  senate.  Or 
again,  outside  Italy,  if  it  is  necessary  to  send  an  embassy  to  recon- 
cile warring  communities,  or  to  remind  them  of  their  duty,  or 
sometimes  to  impose  requisitions  upon  them,  or  to  receive  their 
submission,  or  finally  to  proclaim  war  against  them, — this  too  is 
the  business  of  the  senate.  In  like  manner  the  reception  to  be 
given  to  foreign  ambassadors  in  Rome,  and  the  answers  to  be 
returned  to  them,  are  decided  by  the  senate.  With  such  business 
the  people  have  nothing  to  do.  Consequently,  if  one  were  stay- 
ing at  Rome  when  the  consuls  were  not  in  town,  one  would  imagine 
the  constitution  to  be  a  complete  aristocracy:  and  this  has  been 
the  idea  entertained  by  many  Greeks,  and  by  many  kings  as  well, 
from  the  fact  that  nearly  all  the  business  they  had  with  Rome  was 
settled  by  the  senate. 

After  this  one  would  naturally  be  inclined  to  ask  what  part 
is  left  for  the  people  in  the  constitution,  when  the  senate  has 
these  various  functions,  especially  the  control  of  the  receipts  and 
expenditure  of  the  exchequer;  and  when  the  consuls,  again,  have 

/absolute  power  over  the  details  of  military  preparation,  and  an 
absolute  authority  in  the  field?  There  is,  however,  a  part  left 
the  people,  and  it  is  a  most  important  one.  ^For  the  people  is  tfi'e 
sole  fountain  of  honor  and  of  punishment;  and  it  is  by  these 
two  things  and  these  alone  that  dynasties  and  constitutions  and,  in 
a  word,  human  society  are  held  together:  for  where  the  distinction 
between  them  is  not  sharply  drawn  both  in  theory  and  practice, 
there  no  undertaking  can  be  properly  administered, — as  indeed 
we  might  expect  when  good  and  bad  are  held  in  exactly  the  same 
honor.  |The  people  then  are  the  only  court  to  decide  matters 
**-  of  life  anodeath;  and  even  in  the  cases  where  the  penalty  is  money, 
if  the  sum  to  be  assessed  is  sufficiently  serious,  and  especially  when 
the  accused  have  held  the  high  magistracies.  And  in  regard  to 


POLYBIUS  115 

this  arrangement  there  is  one  point  deserving  especial  commenda- 
tion and  record.  Men  who  are  on  trial  for  their  lives  at  Rome, 
while  sentence  is  in  process  of  being  voted, — if  even  only  one  of 
the  tribes  whose  votes  are  needed  to  ratify  sentence  has  not  voted,- 
— have  the  privilege  at  Rome  of  openly  departing  and  condemning 
themselves  to  a  voluntary  exile.  Such  men  are  safe  at  Naples 
or  Praeneste  or  at  Tibur  and  at  other  towns  with  which  this 
arrangement  has  been  duly  ratified  on  oath. 

(Again,  it  is  the  people  who  bestow  offices  on  the  deserving,  which 
are  the  most  honorable  rewards  of  virtue.     It  has  also  the  abso- ». 
lute  power  of  passing  or  repealing  laws ;  and,  most  important  of  all,  '  *• 
it  is  the  people  who  deliberate  on  the  question  of  peace  or  war.  ) 
And  when  provisional  terms  are  made  for  alliance,  suspension  or 
hostilities,  or  treaties,  it  is  the  people  who  ratify  them  or  the  reverse. 

These  considerations  again  would  lead  one  to  say  that  the  chief 
power  in  the  state  was  the  people's,  and  that  the  constitution  was 
a  democracy. 

Such  then  is  the  distribution  of  power  between  the  several 
parts  of  the  state.  I  must  now  show  how  each  of  these  several 
parts  can,  when  they  choose,  oppose  or  support  each  other. 

The  c^ngul,  then,  when  he  has  started  on  an  expedition  with  the 
powers  I  have  described,  is  to  all  appearance  absolute  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  business  in  hand ;  still  he  has  need  of  the  support 
T^r>t>i  r>f  ppnplp  and  sf;nflf.pj  and  without  them,  ^s  quite  unable  to 
bring  the  matter  to  a  successful  conclusion.  For  it  is  plain  that 
he  must  have  supplies  sent  to  his  legions  from  time  to  time;  but 
without  a  decree  of  the  senate  they  can  be  supplied  neither 
with  corn,  nor  clothes,  nor  pay,  so  that  all  the  plans  of  a  commander 
must  be  futile,  if  the  senate  is  resolved  either  to  shrink  from 
danger  or  hamper  his  plans.  And  again,  whether  a  consul  shall 
bring  any  undertaking  to  a  conclusion  or  not  depends  entirely  upon 
the  senate:  for  it  has  absolute  authority  at  the  end  of  a  year  to 
send  another  consul  to  supersede  him,  or  to  continue  the  existing 
one  in  his  command.  Again,  even  to  the  successes  of  the  generals 
the  senate  has  the  power  to  add  distinction  and  glory,  and  on  the 
other  hand  to  obscure  their  merits  and  lower  their  credit.  For 
these  high  achievements  are  brought  in  tangible  form  before  the 
eyes  of  the  citizens  by  what  are  called  "triumphs."  But  these 
triumphs  the  commanders  cannot  celebrate  with  proper  pomp, 
or  in  some  cases  celebrate  at  all,  unless  the  senate  concurs  and 
grants  the  necessary  money.  As  for  the  people,  the  consuls  are 
preeminently  obliged  to  court  their  favor,  however  distant  from 
home  may  be  the  field  of  their  operations;  for  it  is  the  people,  as 


116  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

I  have  said  before,  that  ratifies,  or  refuses  to  ratify,  terms  of  peace 
and  treaties;  but  most  of  all  because  when  laying  down  their  office 
they  have  to  give  an  account  of  their  administration  before  it. 
Therefore  in  no  case  is  it  safe  for  the  consuls  to  neglect  either  the 
•  senate  or  the  good-will  of  the  people. 

As  for  the  senate,  which  possesses  the  immense  power  I 
have  described,  in  the  first  place  it  is  obliged  in  public  affairs  to 
take  the  multitude  into  account,  and  respect  the  wishes  of  the 
people;  and  it  cannot  put  into  execution  the  penalty  for  offences 
against  the  republic,  which  are  punishable  with  death,  unless  the 
people  first  ratify  its  decrees.  Similarly  even  in  matters  which 
directly  affect  the  senators, — for  instance,  in  the  case  of  a  law 
diminishing  the  senate's  traditional  authority,  or  depriving  sena- 
tors of  certain  dignities  and  offices,  or  even  actually  cutting  down 
their  property, — even  in  such  cases  the  people  have  the  sole  power 
of  passing  or  rejecting  the  law.  But  most  important  of  all  is  the 
fact  that,  if  the  tribunes  interpose  their  veto,  the  senate  not  only 
are  unable  to  pass  a  decree,  but  cannot  even  hold  a  meeting  at  all, 
whether  formal  or  informal.  (Now,  the  tribunes  are  always  bound 
to  carry  out  the  decree  of^the  people,  and  above  all  things  to  have 
regard  to  their  wishes  :£theref ore,  for  all  these  reasons  the  senate 
stands  in  awe  of  the  multitude,  and  cannot  neglect  the  feelings 
of  the  peopljgjy 

In  like  'manner  the  people  on  its  part  is  far  from  being 
independent  of  the  senate,  and  is  bound  to  take  its  wishes  into 
account  both  collectively  and  individually.  For  contracts,  too 
numerous  to  count,  are  given  out  by  the  censors  in  all  parts  of 
Italy  for  the  repairs  or  construction  of  public  buildings;  there  is 
also  the  collection  of  revenue  from  many  rivers,  harbors,  gardens, 
mines,  and  land — everything,  in  a  word,  that  comes  under  the 
control  of  the  Roman  government:  and  in  all  these  the  people 
at  large  are  engaged;  so  that  there  is  scarcely  a  man,  so  to  speak, 
who  is  not  interested  either  as  a  contractor  or  as  being  employed 
in  the  works.  For  some  purchase  the  contracts  from  the  censors 
for  themselves;  and  others  go  partners  with  them;  while  others 
again  go  security  for  these  contractors,  or  actually  pledge  their 
property  to  the  treasury  for  them.  Now  over  all  these  transactions 
the  senate  has  absolute  control.  It  can  grant  an  extension  of 
time;  and  in  case  of  unforeseen  accident  can  relieve  the  contractors 
from  a  portion  of  their  obligation,  or  release  them  from  it  altogether, 
if  they  are  absolutely  unable  to  fulfil  it.  And  there  are  many 
details  in  which  the  senate  can  inflict  great  hardships,  or,  on  the 
other  hand,  grant  great  indulgences  to  the  contractors:  for  in 


POLYBIUS  117 

every  case  the  appeal  is  to  it.  But  the  most  important  point  of 
all  is  that  the  judges  are  taken  f ram  jits  members  in  the  majority 
of  trials^  whether  public  or  private,  in  which  the  charges  are  heavy. 
Consequently,  all  citizens  are  much  at  its  mercy;  and  being  alarmed 
at  the  uncertainty  as  to  when  they  may  need  its  aid,  are  cautious 
about  resisting  or  actively  opposing  its  will.  And  for  a  similar 
reason  men  do  not  rashly  resist  the  wishes  of  the  consuls,  because 
one  and  all  may  become  subject  to  their  absolute  authority  on  a 
campaign. 

[The  result  of  this  power  of  the  several  estates  for  mutual 
help  or  harm  is  a  union  sufficiently  firm  for  all  emergencies,  and  a 
constitution  than  which  it  is  impossible  to  find  a  better.  For 
whenever  any  danger  from  without  compels  them  to  unite  and 
work  together,  the  strength  which  is  developed  by  the  state  is  so 
extraordinary,  that  everything  required  is  unfailingly  carried  out 
by  the  eager  rivalry  shown  by  all  classes  to  devote  their  whole 
minds  to  the  need  of  the  hour,  and  to  secure  that  any  determina- 
tion come  to  should  not  fail  for  want  of  promptitude;  while 
each  individual  works,  privately  and  publicly  alike,  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  business  in  hand^  Accordingly,  the  peculiar 
constitution  of  the  state  makes  it  irresistible,  and  certain  of  obtain- 
ing whatever  it  determines  to  attempt.  Nay,  even  when  these 
external  alarms  are  past,  and  the  people  are  enjoying  their  good 
fortune  and  the  fruits  of  their  victories,  and,  as  usually  happens, 
growing  corrupted  by  flattery  and  idleness,  show  a  tendency  to 
violence  and  arrogance, — it  is  in  these  circumstances,  more  than 
ever,  that  the  constitution  is  seen  to  possess  within  itself  the  power 
of  correcting  abuses.  (For  when  any  one  of  the  three  classes 
becomes  puffed  upT  and  manifests  an  inclination  to  be  conten- 
jious  and  unduly  encroaching,  the  mutual  interdependency  ot  aH 
"the  three,  and  the  possibility  of  the  pretensions  of  any  one  being 
checked  and  thwarted  by  the  others,  must  plainly  check  this 
tendency:  and  so  the  proper  equilibrium  is  maintained  by  the 
impulsiveness  of  the  one  part  being  checked  by  its  fear  of  the 
other.  .  .  .\ 

SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

Fustel  de  Coulanges,  Polybe  ou  la  Grlce  conquise  par  Us  remains,  in  his 
Questions  historiques,  pp.  119—211. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  Ancient  and  Mediceval,  ch.  iv,  §4. 
Strachan-Davidson,  Polybius,  in  Hellenica,  pp.  353-387. 
Willoughby,  Political  Theories  of  the  Ancient  World,  ch.  xviii. 
Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  I,  pp.  251-259. 


ST.  THOMAS  AQUINAS 


IV.    THOMAS  AQUINAS  (1227-1274) 
INTRODUCTION 

The  next  selection  is  from  the  scholastic  philosophy  of  the  late 
middle  ages.  We  pass  over  Roman  authors  and  the  writers  of 
the  early  middle  ages.  We  include  no  Roman  author  because, 
except  for  the  theoretical  form  giyen  to  jurisprudence,  Roman 
literature  furnished  no  great  contribution  to  political  theory.  It 
may  be  roughly  stated  that  the  Roman  mind  was  essentially 
legalistic  rather  than  philosophic.  Roman  commentators  pro- 
duced rationalistic  expositions  of  their  great  system  of  law;  but 
no  writer  set  forth  a  system  of  political  philosophy  of  first  import- 
ance. It  may  be  added  that  under  the  influence  of  Greek  Stoic 
philosophy,  the  Stoic  conception  of  natural  law  became  inter- 
woven into  the  principles  of  Roman  jurisprudence;  and  through 
discussions  of  natural  law  by  Roman  Stoics,  ideas  of  fundamental 
significance  for  political  theory  were  developed.1  The  chief  points 
of  the  doctrine  of  natural  law,  in  its  political  aspect,  are,  however, 
exhibited  more  clearly  in  the  writings  of  later  theorists,  who  em- 
ployed the  idea  under  an  interpretation  more  definitely  dis- 
entangled from  its  ethical  and  metaphysical  connections. 

We  include  no  author  of  the  early  middle  ages;  political  and 
social  conditions  in  that  period  were  unproductive  of  deep  poli- 
tical thought.  Discussions  of  political  questions  appear  in  the 
writings  of  jurists  and  of  church  writers,  in  connection  with  the 
frequent  controversies  that  arose  out  of  the  conflicting  claims  of 
temporal  and  spiritual  authorities.  But  these  discussions  were 
dogmatic  or  legalistic,  and  did  not  lead  to  any  philosophic  exami- 
nation of  the  foundations  of  the  political  order  of  society.  The 
divine  ordination  of  the  state,  as  well  of  the  church,  was  a  major 
premise  for  both  parties  to  the  disputes.2 

lCf.  Pollock,  History  of  the  Science  of  Politics,  pp.  29-33;  Willoughby,  Politi- 
cal Theories  of  the  Ancient  World,  chs.  xiv-xvii;  Dunning,  Political  Theories, 
Ancient  and  Mediceval,  ch.  iv,  §§3  and  6. 

2  On  the  political  ideas  of  mediaeval  ecclesiastics  and  jurists,  from  the  first 
century  to  the  thirteenth  century,  cf.  Pollock,  History  of  the  Science  of  Politics, 
34~37I  Dunning,  Political  Theories,  Ancient  and  Mediceval,  chs.  v-vii; 


L;arlyle,  History  of  Mediaeval  Political  Theory,  Vol.  I,  chs.  viii-xxi,  and  Vol. 
II;  Gii 


rierke,  Political  Theories  of  the  Middle  Age. 

121 


122  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

The  prevailing  system  of  late  mediaeval  thought  is  known  as 
"Scholasticism."  (The  scholastic  method  was  formal  and  deduc- 
tive— the  balancing  of  authorities,  the  definition^and  discrimination 
of  words,  the  systematic  application  of  the  syllogism  to  all  ques- 
tions. A  source  of  authority  for  scholastics  was,  On  the  one  hand, 

s  Aristotle,  whose  writings  were  far  more  comprehensive  and  analy- 
tical than  anything  else  in  secular  literature  known  to  the  mediaeval 
mind.  On  the  other  hand,  their  authorities  were,  first,  the  Scrip- 
tures, and,  secondly,  the  doctrines  of  the  church  as  embodied  in 
the  writings  of  the  church  fathers  and  in  ecclesiastical  decrees. 
The  aim  of  scholasticism  was  to  merge  into  one  system  human 
and  divine  philosophy,  to  interweave  the  higher  tenets  of  human 
reason — as  set  forth  in  Aristotle,  with  the  doctrines  of  Christian 
theology — as  revealed  in  the  Bible  and  the  tradition  of  the  church; 
where  the  two  elements  appeared  incompatible,  the  former  ,was 
to  be  adjusted  to  the  latter.1 

\  The  greatest  of  the  scholastics  was  Thomas  Aquinas.  His 
writings  were  in  general  too  closely  governed  by  dogmatic  theol- 
ogy to  have  comprised  any  consistently  worked-out  scheme  of 
political  theory;  but  his  definition  and  classification  of  laws  were 
of  notable  influence  upon  important  juristic  treatises  by  theologians 
and  others  of  later  periods;  and  the  discussion  of  the  limits  of 
government,  in  his  De  Regimine  Principum,  shows  independent 
thinking  in  advance  of  his  school. 

Aquinas  was  born  in  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
in  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  of  a  family  of  noble  descent.  He  was  a 
devoted  student  of  philosophy  and  theology,  and  was  a  lecturer 
and  teacher  in  these  subjects  at  Paris,  Naples,  Rome,  and  other 
places.  He  was  active  and  influential  in  the  service  of  the  church 
and  of  the  Dominican  order  of  friars,  which  he  joined  while  a  young 
man.  From  his  teachings  and  writings  he  ranks  with  St.  Augus- 
tine as  one  of  the  two  most  influential  theologians  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  church.  His  analysis  of  law  forms  a  part  of  his  Summa 
Theologica,  a  work  which  was  designed  to  cover  the  whole  field 
of  learning  defined  and  interpreted  according  to  the  philosophy  of 
Aristotle  and  the  doctrines  of  the  church.  The  Rule  of  Princes 
was  intended  as  a  distinctly  political  treatise;  it  was  not  completed 
at  the  author's  death;  the  parts  which  he  wrote  deal  with  the  origin 
1  Cf.  Ueberweg,  History  of  Philosophy,  Vol.  I,  pp.  355-356. 


ST.  THOMAS  AQUINAS  123 

and  basis  of  civil  government,  the  best  form  of  state,  and  the  sphere 
of  government.1  <This  study  is  dominated  by  the  prevailing  as- 
sumption of  the  superiority  of  the  monarchical  to  other  forms  of 
government;  and  it  reflects  in  the  main  the  church's  view  as  to 
the  supremacy  of  ecclesiastical  over  temporal  authoritjj)  How- 
ever, the  examination  of  the  limits  of  government  is  set  forth  with 
skill  and  originality,  and  at  points  conclusions  are  reached  which 
accord  pretty  closely  with  ideas  commonly  considered  to  be  dis- 
tinctively modern. 


READINGS  FROM   ST.   THOMAS  AQUINAS2 

1.     The  Definition  of  Law  8 
Article  I.     Whether  law  is  a  thing  of  the  reason* 

We  proceed  thus  to  the  first  article,  i.  It  seems  that  law  is  not 
a  thing  of  the  reason.  For  the  Apostle  says,  I  see  another  law  in 
my  members.  But  nothing  pertaining  to  the  reason  exists  in  the 
members  of  the  body;  for  reason  does  not  employ  corporeal  organs. 
Therefore,  law  is  not  a  thing  of  the  reason. 

2.  Furthermore,  in  reason  we  find  only  power,  mode  and  per- 
formance.    Law  is  clearly  not  the  power  of  reason;  likewise,  law 
is  not  a  mode  of  the  reason,  for  the  modes  of  reason  constitute 
intellectual  faculties;  nor  is  law  a  performance  of  reason,  for  in 
such  case  when  reason  ceased  to  act,  law  would  cease.     Therefore, 
law  is  not  a  thing  of  the  reason. 

3.  Moreover,  law  impels  those  who  are  subject  to  it  to  right 
conduct.     But  to  impel  to  action  pertains,  properly  speaking, 
to  the  will,  not  to  the  reason;  thus  the  jurist  says,  quod  placuit 
principi,  legis  habet  vigorem. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  function  of  law  to  command  and  for- 
bid. But  command  issues  from  the  reason,  as  we  have  shown. 
Therefore,  law  is  a  thing  of  the  reason. 

Conclusion :  Since  law  is  a  rule  and  standard  (regula  et  mensura) 
of  human  action,  it  is  necessarily  related  to  reason. 

To  the  objections  I  answer  that  law  is  a  rule  and  standard  of 

1  These  subjects  are  treated  in  the  first  book  and  in  the  first  part  of  the  second 
book.    The  remainder  of  the  work  was  written  by  another  author. 

2  The  translations  are  made  from  a  Paris  edition  (1871-1880)  of  his  Opera 
Omnia,  34  vols.    Summa  Theologica  is  in  Vols.  I-VI;  De  Regimine  Principum 
is  in  Vol.  XXVII  (opusc.  16). 

3  Summa  Theologica,  Vo1.  II,  cl:  i,  question  xc:  De  Lege. 

4  Utrum  lex  sit  aliquid  rationis. 


124 ;  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

conduct,  according  to  which  one  is  induced  to  act  or  to  be  restrained 
from  acting.  The  word  lex  is  said  to  be  derived  from  the  word 
Uganda,  because  it  binds  one  to  action.  Moreover,  the  rule  and 
standard  of  human  acts  is  reason,  which  is  the  first  principle  of 
human  conduct.  For  it  is  the  function  of  reason  to  direct  anything 
towards  an  end;  and  that,  according  to  the  Philosopher,1  is  the 
first  impulse  of  action.  Again,  in  a  thing  of  any  class  that  which  is 
its  first  principle  is  the  standard  and  rule  of  that  species ;  as  unity, 
in  the  category,  number,  or  first  motion,  in  the  category,  motion. 
Whence  it  follows  that  law  is  something  pertaining  to  the  reason. 

To  the  first  argument  above  it  should  be  replied  that,  since  law 
is  a  rule  and  standard,  it  may  be  said  to  exist  in  a  two-fold  manner 
in  anything.  In  one  sense  it  exists  in  the  subject  which  governs 
and  regulates;  this  being  the  property  of  reason,  law,  in  this 
sense,  is  in  the  reason  alone.  In  another  aspect  law  is  a  part  of 
the  object  which  is  governed  and  regulated;  thus  law  exists  in 
anything  which  is  inclined  in  a  certain  direction  by  law;  an  inclina- 
tion proceeding  from  a  law  may  be  said  to  be,  not  essentially 
law,  but  law  by  participation.  In  this  sense,  the  propensity  of 
bodily  members  towards  concupiscence  is  called  a  law  of  the  mem- 
bers. 

To  the  second  argument  it  should  be  replied  that,  just  as  in 
external  acts  it  is  necessary  to  consider  both  the  operation  and 
the  thing  produced — for  example,  the  process  of  construction  and 
the  completed  building — so,  in  the  works  of  the  reason,  we  con- 
sider, on  the  one  hand,  the  action  of  reason — that  is,  the  com- 
prehension and  ratiocination — and,  on  the  other  hand,  what  is 
accomplished  through  the  action  of  reason,  which,  in  speculative 
reason  includes  the  definition,  the  proposition,  and  the  syllogism, 
or  argumentation.  And  since  even  the  practical  reason  makes  use 
of  the  syllogism  in  ethics,  we  find  in  the  practical  reason  that  which 
is  related  to  actions  as  the  proposition,  in  speculative  reason, 
is  related  to  conclusions.  These  universal  propositions  of  the 
practical  reason,  which  relate  to  acts,  have  the  nature  of  law. 
Reason  examines  these  propositions  individually;  moreover,  it 
conserves  them  collectively,  as  customs. 

To  the  third  argument  it  is  to  be  replied  that  reason  derives 
its  moving  force  from  the  will.  For  when  one  wills  a  certain  end, 
reason  prescribes  the  means  to  that  end.  But  since  the  will, 
with  respect  to  the  things  which  it  commands  with  some  end  in 
view,  has  the  nature  of  law,  it  should  be  regulated  by  law.  It  is 

1  "  The  Philosopher  "  was  a  common  title  for  Aristctle  in  the  thirteenth  and 
following  centuries. 


ST.  THOMAS  AQUINAS  125 

in  this  sense  that  the  principle — "the  will  of  the  prince  has  the 
force  of  law,"  should  be  understood;  otherwise  the  will  of  the 
prince  would  be  injustice  rather  than  law. 

Article  II.  Whether  law  is  always  ordained  for  the  common 
good.1 

We  proceed  thus  to  the  second  article,  i.  It  seems  that  law 
is  not  always  ordained  for  the  common  good  as  its  end.  For  it 
pertains  to  law  to  command  and  forbid.  But  commands  are 
ordained  for  certain  particular  goods.  Therefore,  the  end  of  law 
is  not  always  the  common  good. 

2.  Again,  law  directs  man  to  action.     But  human  conduct  is 
made  up  of  particular  acts.     Therefore,  law  is  ordained  for  some 
particular  good. 

3.  Furthermore,  Isidore  says,  "if  law  is  made  of  the  reason, 
law  will  be  everything  that  is  constituted  of   reason. "  2     But 
reason  consists  not  only  of  that  which  has  as  its  end  the  common 
good,  but  also  of  that  which  is  ordained  to  the  private  good  of  an 
individual.     Therefore,  etc. 

On  the  other  hand,  Isidore  says  that  "law  is  made  for  the  private 
advantage  of  no  one,  but  for  the  common  benefit  of  all  the  citi- 
zens. " 

Conclusion :  Since  law  is  the  rule  of  human  conduct,  the  ultimate 
end  of  which  is  happiness,  and,  indeed,  the  common  happiness, 
it  is  necessarily  always  ordained  for  the  common  good. 

To  the  objections  I  answer  that  law  relates  to  the  principle  of 
human  action,  since  it  is  a  standard  and  rule.  Moreover,  as 
reason  is  the  principle  of  human  conduct,  so  in  reason  itself  there 
is  something  which  is  the  principle  with  respect  to  everything  else 
in  reason;  wherefore  it  is  to  this  principle  of  reason  that  law  should 
fundamentally  and  especially  pertain.  The  first  principle  of 
acts  governed  by  the  practical  reason  is  the  final  end;  the  final 
end  of  human  life  is  happiness,  or  blessedness;  whence  it  is  neces- 
sary that  law  should  have  special  regard  for  the  condition  of 
happiness.  Again,  since  every  part  is  ordained  for  the  whole, 
as  the  imperfect  for  the  perfect  (and  as  one  man  is  a  part  of  the 
perfect  community),  it  is  necessary  that  law  should  have  in  view 
the  common  happiness.  Wherefore,  the  Philosopher,  in  denning 
legal  things,  speaks  of  felicity  and  the  political  community;  he 
says,  "we  call  just  those  laws  which  produce  and  conserve  the 
happiness  of  the  state,  and  of  the  individuals,  by  virtue  of  their 

1  Ulrum  lex  ordinetur  semper  ad  bonum  commune. 

*  "Si  ratione  lex  constat,  lex  erit  omne  quod  ralione  constiterit" 


126  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

political  association."  The  perfect  community  is  the  state,  as 
he  also  says.  But  in  any  generic  thing,  that  which  is  named 
particularly  is  the  principle  of  the  other  qualities,  which  are  said 
to  pertain  to  the  principal  quality.  Thus  fire,  which  is  hot  above 
all  things  else,  is  the  cause  of  heat  in  bodies  partly  hot,  which  are 
said  to  be  hot  in  so  far  as  they  partake  of  fire.  Whence  it  follows 
necessarily  that,  since  law  has  regard  especially  for  the  common 
good,  every  precept  concerning  a  particular  deed  should  have  the 
character  of  law  only  in  so  far  as  it  looks  to  the  common  good. 
Thus  every  law  is  ordained  for  the  common  good. 

To  the  first  argument  above  it  should  be  replied  that  a  precept 
implies  the  application  of  a  law  to  those  things  which  are  governed 
by  the  law.  An  order,  however,  which  relates  to  the  common 
good  and  which  pertains  to  law,  is  thus  applicable  to  individual 
ends;  accordingly,  there  are  precepts  concerning  particular  acts. 

To  the  second  argument  it  is  to  be  replied  that  performances 
indeed  consist  in  particular  acts;  but  these  particular  acts  can 
relate  to  the  common  good,  not  through  community  of  kind,  but 
through  community  of  final  purpose;  accordingly,  the  common 
good  is  said  to  be  the  common  end. 

To  the  third  argument  it  may  be  replied  that  just  as  nothing  is 
firmly  established  by  speculative  reason,  save  through  resolution 
into  first,  undemonstrable  principles,  so  nothing  is  firmly  estab- 
lished by  practical  reason  save  through  relating  it  to  the  final  end, 
which  is  the  common  good.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  what  is 
established  by  reason  has  the  nature  of  law. 

Article  III.     Whether  everyone's  reason  makes  law.1 

We  proceed  thus  to  the  third  article,  i.  It  would  seem  that 
the  reason  of  anyone  might  produce  law.  For  the  Apostle  says, 
For  when  the  Gentiles,  which  have  not  the  law,  do  by  nature  the 
things  contained  in  the  law,  these  are  a  law  unto  themselves.  But 
this  is  commonly  said  of  everybody.  Therefore  anyone  may 
make  law  for  himself. 

2.  Furthermore,  the  Philosopher  says,  "the  aim  of  the  law- 
maker is  to  lead  man  to  virtue."     But  anyone  can  lead  another 
to  virtue.     Therefore,  the  reason  of  any  man  may  produce  law. 

3.  Again,  as  a  prince  of  a  state  is  governor  of  that  state,  so  a 
father  of  a  family  is  governor  of  his  home.     But  the  prince  of  a 
state   can  make   law  in  that  state.     Therefore,  any  father  of  a 
family  can  make  law  in  his  own  home. 

On  the  other  hand,  Isidore  says,  what  we  also  read  in  the  canon 
1  Utrum  ratio  cujuslibet  sit  factiva  legis. 


ST.  THOMAS  AQUINAS  127 

law,  "Law  is  that  which  has  been  established  by  the  people  and 
in  accordance  with  which  the  elders  have,  with  the  concurrence  of 
the  multitude,  decreed  this  or  that  thing."  Therefore,  it  is  not 
the  function  of  everyone  to  make  law. 

Conclusion:  Since  law  ordains  the  common  good,  law  can  be 
created  by  the  reason,  not  of  any  individual,  but  of  the  multitude, 
or  of  the  prince  acting  for  the  multitude. 

To  the  objections  I  answer  that  law,  properly  understood,  has 
regard  primarily  and  principally  to  the  common  good.  To 
ordain  anything  for  the  common  good  is  the  province  either  of  the 
entire  multitude  or  of  some  one  acting  for  the  entire  multitude. 
Therefore,  to  create  law  pertains  either  to  the  entire  multitude 
or  to  the  public  person  who  is  charged  with  the  interests  of  the 
multitude;  for  in  every  undertaking  it  is  the  function  of  him  who 
has  the  care  of  the  end  to  ordain  the  means  to  that  end. 

To  the  first  argument  above  it  should,  therefore,  be  answered 
that  law  not  only  emanates  from  the  subject  which  governs  but 
is  a  part  also  of  the  object  which  is  governed.  In  this  sense 
anyone  is  a  law  unto  himself  in  so  far  as  he  takes  to  himself  the 
order  of  him  who  rules.  Wherefore,  the  Apostle  adds,  which 
shew  the  work  of  the  law  written  in  their  hearts. 

To  the  second  argument  it  should  be  replied  that  a  private  per- 
son cannot  effectually  lead  anyone  to  virtue ;  he  can  only  admonish ; 
if  his  admonition  is  rejected  he  lacks  the  compulsive  force  which 
law  must  have  in  order  to  lead  actually  to  virtue.  This  compul- 
sive force,  however,  inheres  in  the  multitude,  or  in  the  public 
person  to  whom  it  pertains  to  impose  penalties;  thus  it  is  his 
function  to  make  law. 

To  the  third  argument  it  should  be  replied  that  as  a  man  is  part 
of  a  household,  so  the  household  is  part  of  the  state;  the  state, 
however,  is  the  perfect  community.  Therefore,  just  as  the  good 
of  a  single  man  is  not  an  ultimate  end,  but  his  good  is  itself  or- 
dained for  the  common  good,  so  the  good  of  a  single  household  is 
ordained  for  the  good  of  the  state,  which  is  the  perfect  community. 
Consequently,  though  he  who  governs  a  family  may  issue  certain 
precepts  or  statutes,  his  commands  do  not  have  the  character  of 
law. 

Article  IV.     Whether  promulgation  is  essential  to  law.1 

We  proceed  thus  to  the  fourth  article,  i.  It  seems  that  pro- 
mulgation is  not  of  the  essence  of  law.  For  natural  law  has  pre- 
eminently the  essence  of  law.  But  natural  law  does  not  require 

1  Utrum  promulgatio  sit  de  ratione  legis. 


128  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

promulgation.     Therefore,  it  is  not  of  the  essence  of  law  that  it 
should  be  promulgated. 

2.  Moreover,  law  obliges  one  to  do  or  to  abstain  from  doing 
something.     But  not  only  those  in  whose  presence  the  law  is 
promulgated  are  bound  to  obey  the  law,  but  others  as  well.    There- 
fore, promulgation  is  not  essential  to  law. 

3.  Furthermore,  the  obligation  of  law  extends  to  the  future, 
for  "laws  place  constraint  upon  future  transactions,"  as  the 
civil  law  says.     But  promulgation  is  addressed  to  those  of  the 
present.    Therefore,  promulgation  is  not  a  requirement  of  law. 

On  the  contrary,  it  is  said  in  the  canon  law  that  "laws  are 
instituted  when  they  are  promulgated. " 

Conclusion:  Since  law  is  established  as  a  rule  which  is  to  be 
applied  to  those  upon  whom  it  is  imposed,  it  is  necessary,  in  order 
that  it  may  have  obligatory  force,  that  it  should  be  promulgated 
and  brought  to  the  notice  of  those  who  are  subject  to  the  law. 

I  answer,  then,  that,  as  we  have  shown,  law  is  imposed  upon 
men  as  a  rule  and  standard.  A  rule  or  standard  is  imposed  by 
virtue  of  being  applied  to  that  which  is  governed  or  regulated. 
Wherefore,  in  order  that  law  may  obtain  binding  power,  which  is 
the  proper  character  of  law,  it  must  be  applied  to  those  persons 
who  are  to  be  ruled  by  it.  Such  application  is  made  by  bringing 
it  to  their  knowledge  through  promulgation.  Thus  promulga- 
tion is  necessary  in  order  for  law  to  have  its  peculiar  virtue. 

From  the  four  foregoing  propositions  we  may  now  derive  the  ) 
definition  of  law,  which  is  nothing  but  an  ordinance  of  reason  for  I 
the  common  good,  promulgated  by  him  who  has  the  care  of  the  / 
community.1 

To  the  first  argument  above,  therefore,  it  should  be  answered 
that  promulgation  of  natural  law  exists  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that 
God  has  implanted  that  law  in  the  minds  of  men  in  such  manner 
that  they  apprehend  it  naturally. 

To  the  second  argument  it  should  be  replied  that  those  in  whose 
presence  the  law  is  not  promulgated  are  bound  to  its  observance 
in  so  far  as  it  has  come,  or  can  come,  into  their  knowledge  through 
others,  after  it  has  been  promulgated. 

To  the  third  argument  it  is  to  be  responded  that  promulgation 
in  the  present  extends  into  the  future  through  the  permanence  of 
writing,  which  in  a  way  promulgates  it  forever.  Wherefore, 
Isidore  says,  "the  word  'law'  is  said  to  be  derived  from  'reading' 
(legendo),  because  it  is  written. " 

1  "Quaedam  rationis  ordinatio  ad  bonum  commune,  et  ab  eo  qui  curam  com- 
munitatis  habet,  promulgata." 


ST.  THOMAS  AQUINAS  129 

2.     The  Nature  and  Duties  of  Royal  Authority  l 

Ch.  i.     What  is  meant  by  the  name,  king.2 

Our  plan  must  begin  with  an  explanation  of  what  is  to  be 
understood  by  the  word  "king."  In  all  pursuits  which  are 
directed  toward  some  end  and  in  which  it  is  possible  to 
proceed  in  more  than  one  way,  there  is  need  of  some  con- 
trolling force  by  which  one  may  arrive  by  a  straight  course 
at  the  appointed  goal.  A  ship,  driven  in  various  directions 
by  the  impulse  of  varying  winds,  would  never  reach  her 
destination  were  she  not  guided  to  the  port  by  the  diligence  of  the 
helmsman.  But  for  a  man  there  is  an  end  toward  which  his 
whole  life  and  action  are  directed;  for  he  acts  by  virtue  of  the  in- 
tellect,  whose  property  is  to  act  purposefully.  Moreover,  it 
happens  that  men  proceed  through  various  ways  toward  the  proper- 
destination  of  mankind;  this  is  revealed  in  the  diversity  of 
human  interests  and  actions.  Man,  therefore,  needs  something 
to  guide  him  toward  his  goal.  There  dwells  naturally  within 
every  man  the  light  of  reason,  by  which  he  in  his  actions  is  directed 
toward  his  proposed  end.  If  it  suited  man  to  live  singly,  as 
many  animals  do,  he  would  need  no  one  else  to  guide  him  to  his 
end;  every  man  would  be  his  own  king,  under  God — the  supreme 
king;  by  the  light  of  reason,  divinely  given,  he  would  direct  himself 
in  all  his  acts.  But  it  is  the  nature  of  man  to  be  a  social  and  political 
animal,  living  in  a  multitude, — more  so  than  other  animals,  as 
natural  necessity  makes  manifest.  For  other  animals  nature  has 
prepared  food,  coverings  of  hair,  and  means  of  defence — such  as 
teeth,  horns,  and  claws;  or,  at  least,  they  have  speed  for  flight. 
Man  was  created  with  none  of  these  things  prepared  for  him  by 
nature;  in  place  of  them  all  reason  was  given  him  by  which  he 
might  provide  them  for  himself  with  the  work  of  his  hands.  But 
to  obtain  such  things  one  man  is  not  sufficient ;  for  one  man  alone 
could  not  live  an  adequate  life.3  It  is,  therefore,  natural  to  man 
to  live  in  the  society  of  many. 

Furthermore,  in  other  animals  there  exists  a  natural  instinct 
(industrial)  with  regard  to  all  things  which  are  beneficial  or 
harmful  to  them;  for  example,  the  sheep  naturally  considers 
the  wolf  his  enemy;  animals  also  by  natural  instinct  know  that 
some  herbs  are  necessary  to  their  lives  and  that  others  are  medici- 
nal. But  only  in  a  community  does  man  have  natural  knowledge 

1  De  Regimine  Principum,  Bk.  I,  chs.  i,  ii,  and  xv. 

2  Quid  significetur  nomine  regis. 

3  "Nam  unus  homo  per  se  sufficienter  vitam  transigere  non  posset." 


130  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

of  those  things  which  are  necessary  to  his  life,  as  if  having  power 
through  reason  to  obtain  from  general  principles  the  knowledge  of 
the  simple  things  which  are  necessary  to  human  life.  It  is  not  pos- 
sible, however,  for  one  man  by  his  own  reason  to  accomplish  all 
of  this.  It  is,  therefore,  necessary  for  men  to  live  in  multitudes, 
so  that  one  may  be  helped  by  another  and  different  ones  may  be 

,  occupied  in  discovering  different  things,  through  reason;  thus  one 
is  engaged  in  medicine,  another  in  this  pursuit,  another  in  that. 
This  system  is  made  very  manifest  in  the  fact  that  it  is  a  character- 
istic of  man  to  use  speech,  by  means  of  which  he  is  able  to  set  com- 
pletely forth  his  conceptions  to  his  fellows.  Other  animals  ex- 
press their  passions  to  each  other  in  various  ways,  as  dogs  indicate 
their  anger  by  barking.  But  man  is  more  disposed  to  communica- 
tion than  any  other  gregarious  animal,  such  as  the  crane,  the 
ant,  or  the  bee.  Regarding  this  matter  Solomon  says  (Eccl.  iv.  9), 
Two  are  better  than  one,  because  they  have  the  reward  of  mutual 
society. 

If  it  is  natural  to  man  to  live  in  a  numerous  society  it  is  neces- 
sary that  there  should  be  provision  for  ruling  such  a  society,. 
Where  there  are  many  men  and  each  seeks  that  which  is  agreeable 
to  himself,  the  group  will  soon  fall  apart,  unless  there  be  some 
one  who  cares  for  those  things  which  concern  the  good  of  the  aggre- 
gate; just  as  the  body  of  a  man  (or  any  other  animal)  would  be 
destroyed  if  there  were  no  controlling  force  in  the  body  working 
for  the  common  benefit  of  all  the  members.  Thus  Solomon  says 
(Prov.  xi.  14),  Where  no  counsel  is,  the  people  will  fall.  And  this 
is  reasonable;  for  what  is  individual  (proprium)  is  not  the  same  as 
that  which  is  common;  in  private  matters  men  differ,  in  common 
affairs  they  are  united.  Moreover,  the  interests  of  different  people 
are  diverse.  It  is,  therefore,  right  that  in  addition  to  that  which 
works  to  the  private  advantage  of  each  there  should  be  something 

•  which  acts  for  the  common  good  of  the  many;  for  in  all  things 
which  are  organized  into  a  unity  one  is  found  to  rule  the  others. 
In  the  universe  of  bodies,  the  first — that  is,  the  astral,  body  rules 
all  the  others,  according  to  the  plan  of  divine  providence;  and  all 
bodies  are  ruled  by  the  rational  creature.  In  a  man,  moreover, 
the  soul  rules  the  body,  and  within  the  soul  the  irascible  and  sensual 
parts  are  controlled  by  the  reason.  Among  the  members  of  the 
body  one  is  chief — the  heart,  or  the  head,  which  rules  the  others. 

••  Thus  there  must  be  within  every  multitude  a  ruling  power. 

In  some  pursuits  directed  toward  an  end  it  is  possible  to  pro- 
ceed rightly  or  wrongly.  There  is  a  right  and  a  wrong  way  in  the 
government  of  a  multitude.  Anything  is  rightly  directed  when 

\ 


ST.  THOMAS  AQUINAS  131 

it  is  brought  to  its  proper  goal,  and  wrongly  when  it  is  guided  to 
an  unfitting  end.  The  appropriate  goal  for  a  multitude  of  free- 
men is  different  from  that  for  a  multitude  of  slaves.  He  is  free 
who  lives  for  his  own  sake;  he  is  a  slave  who  exists  for  another. 
If  a  multitude  of  freemen  is  governed  by  a  ruler  for  their  common 
good,  the  government  is  right  and  just,  and  appropriate  for  free 
men.  If  the  government  is  directed  not  to  the  common  good, 
but  to  the  private  good  of  the  ruler,  then  it  is  unjust  and  perverted. 
The  Lord  threatens  such  a  ruler,  saying  (Ezek.  xxxiv.  2),  Woe  be 
to  the  shepherds  that  do  feed  themselves!  should  not  the  shepherds 
feed  the  flocks?  Shepherds  should  seek  the  good  of  the  flock,  and 
every  ruler  the  good  of  the  multitude  subject  to  him. 

If  an  unjust  government  should  be  established  by  one  man  who 
in  governing  seeks  his  own  benefit,  and  not  that  of  the  multitude 
committed  to  him,  such  a  ruler  is  called  a  tyrant,  a  name  derived 
from  might  (fortitudine) ,  because  he  coerces  with  force,  instead 
of  ruling  with  justice;  thus  among  the  ancients  some  powerful 
persons  were  called  tyrants.  When  an  unjust  government  is 
founded,  not  by  one,  but  by  a  few,  it  is  called  an  oligarchy,  which 
is  the  rule  of  a  few  who,  for  the  sake  of  riches,  oppress  the  people; 
it  differs  from  a  tyranny  only  in  number.  If  the  evil  government 
be  conducted  by  the  many,  it  is  called  a  democracy,  which  is  the 
rule  of  the  common  people  who  through  force  of  numbers  over- 
whelm the  wealthy;  the  whole  people  here  are  as  one  tyrant. 
Just  governments  should  be  distinguished  in  the  same  manner. 
If  just  government  is  controlled  by  a  multitude  it  is  called  by 
the  general  name  of  polity,  as  when  a  multitude  of  warriors  rule 
within  a  state  or  province.  If  it  is  conducted  by  a  few  who  are 
virtuous,  it  is  called  an  aristocracy — which  is  the  best  dominion, 
or  the  government  of  the  best,  who  are  thus  called  optimates.  If 
the  just  power  belongs  to  one  alone,  he  is  properly  called  king; 
wherefore  the  Lord  says  (Ezek.  xxxvii.  24),  Daniel  my  servant 
shall  be  king  over  them;  and  they  all  shall  have  one  shepherd.  Thus 
it  is  clearly  manifest  that  from  the  nature  of  a  king  he  is  one  who 
is  set  above,1  and  that  he  should  be  a  shepherd  seeking  the  com- 
mon good  of  the  multitude  and  not  his  own. 

Since  it  is  fitting  for  man  to  live  in  a  multitude  because  he  is 
not  sufficient  unto  himself  with  regard  to  the  necessaries  of  life, 
the  society  of  the  multitude  ought  to  be  as  much  more  perfect 
than  life  in  isolation  as  it  is  in  itself  more  sufficient  in  the  neces- 
saries of  life.  There  is  indeed  a  certain  sufficiency  for  life  in 

1  "Ex  quo  manifeste  ostenditur  quod  de  ratione  regis  est  quod  sit  unus  qui 
praesit,"  etc. 


132  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  family  of  one  household,  as  much,  that  is,  as  is  needed  for 
natural  acts  of  nutrition,  reproduction  of  offspring,  and  other 
similar  purposes.  There  is  a  sufficiency  in  one  village,  so  far  as 
the  things  belonging  to  one  craft  go.  But  in  a  city  (civitate),  which 
is  a  perfect  community,  there  is  everything  that  is  required  for  all 
the  necessaries  of  life;  and  still  more  sufficient  is  a  province,  when 
there  is  need  for  mutual  assistance  in  fighting  against  common 
enemies.  Therefore,  the  one  who  rules  a  perfect  community — 
that  is,  a  city  or  a  province,  is  called  by  the  title  of  king.  The 
one  who  rules  a  house  is  called  not  king  but  paterfamilias;  but  he 
has  a  certain  likeness  to  a  king;  so  kings  are  sometimes  called 
fathers  of  their  people. 

It  appears,  then,  from  what  has  been  said,  that  a  king  is  one 
who  rules  the  multitude  of  a  city  or  province,  and  rules  it  for  the 
public  good;  wherefore  Solomon  says  (Eccl.  v.  8),  The  king  reigneth 
over  all  the  land  subject  to  him. 

Ch.  ii.  Whether  it  is  better  for  a  city  or  province  to  be  governed 
by  several  rulers  or  by  one.1 

Having  made  these  introductory  remarks  we  ought  now  to 
inquire  which  is  more  advantageous  to  a  province  or  city,  to  be 
ruled  by  several  or  by  one.  This  can  be  answered  from  a  considera- 
tion of  the  actual  purpose  of  government. 

N  The  aim  of  any  ruler  ought  to  be  to  secure  the  safety  of  that 
which  he  has  undertaken  to  rule.  Thus  it  is  the  duty  of  the  pilot, 
by  preserving  his  ship  against  the  perils  of  the  sea,  to  bring  it 
uninjured  to  a  port  of  safety.  Now  the  good  and  safety  of  an 
associated  multitude  consist  in  the  preservation  of  its  unity, 
which  is  peace;  if  this  be  lost  the  advantages  of  social  life  vanish; 
nay  more,  the  multitude  in  disagreement  becomes  a  burden  to 
itself.  It  is  for  this,  therefore,  that  the  ruler  of  a  multitude  ought 
especially  to  strive,  that  he  may  obtain  the  unity  of  peace.  Nor 
is  it  right  for  him  to  debate  whether  he  will  maintain  peace  in 
the  multitude  subject  to  him,  as  it  is  not  right  for  a  physician  to  con- 
sider whether  he  will  cure  a  patient  intrusted  to  his  care.  For 
one  ought  to  debate  not  concerning  the  end  which  it  is  his  duty 
to  seek  but  concerning  the  means  to  that  end.  Wherefore,  the 
Apostle,  commanding  the  unity  of  the  faithful,  says  (Ephes.  iv. 
3),  Be  solicitous  to  keep  the  unity  of  the, Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace. 
The  more  efficacious  is  the  government  in  preserving  the  unity 
of  peace,  the  more  useful  will  it  be.  For  we  regard  that  as  more 
useful  which  leads  more  directly  to  a  proposed  end.  And  it  is 

1  Quid  plus  expediat  civitati  vel  provincia  pluribus  aut  uno  regi  rectore. 


ST.  THOMAS  AQUINAS  133 

clear  that  unity  can  be  more  readily  created  by  that  which  is  one 
in  itself  than  by  a  multiple  agent,  just  as  heat  is  produced  most 
effectively  by  a  body  which  is  in  itself  hot  or  a  source  of  heat. 
Therefore,  the  rule  of  one  is  more  beneficial  than  the  rule  of  many. 

Moreover,  where  several  rulers  disagree  completely  they 
cannot  control  the  multitude.  Among  any  number  a  certain 
union  is  necessary  if  they  are  to  rule  at  all.  Many  cannot  propel 
a  ship  in  one  direction  unless  they  are  joined  together  in  some  way. 
But  a  number  of  things  are  united  in  so  far  as  they  approach  to 
one  thing.  .  .  . 

Furthermore,  those  things  which  follow  nature  are  best,  for 
in  every  instance  nature  operates  best.  But  all  natural  govern- 
ment is  by  one.  Among  the  numerous  members  of  the  human 
body,  there  is  one  member,  the  heart,  which  controls  all  the  others; 
and  in  the  parts  of  the  soul,  one  force  rules  supreme,  namely,  the 
reason.  There  is  one  king  among  bees;  in  the  universe  there  is 
one  God,  the  creator  and  ruler  of  all  things.  And  this  is  reason- 
able. For  every  multitude  is  derived  from  one.  Wherefore,  if 
things  of  art  imitate  things  of  nature,  and  a  work  of  art  is  by  so 
much  the  better  as  it  achieves  similitude  to  what  is  in  nature, 
then  necessarily  a  human  multitude  is  best  governed  by  one. 
Experience  proves  the  same  thing.  Those  provinces  and  cities 
which  are  not  ruled  by  one  are  beset  with  dissension  and  are  buf- 
feted about  without  any  peace;  thus  here  appears  to  be  fulfilled 
the  complaint  of  the  Lord,  who  said,  through  His  prophet  (Jer. 
xii.  10),  Many  pastors  have  destroyed  my  vineyard.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  provinces  and  states  which  are  ruled  by  one  king  enjoy 
peace,  are  strong  in  justice,  and  rejoice  in  affluence.  Wherefore, 
the  Lord,  through  His  prophets,  promised  His  people,  as  a  great 
reward,  that  He  would  place  over  them  one  head,  and  that  there 
should  be  one  prince  among  them. 

Ch.  xv.  That  a  kingdom  ought  to  be  governed  primarily  with  a 
view  to  creating  happiness.1 

Just  as  the  life  which  men  live  well  here  is  ordered  with  a  view 
to  a  happy  life  in  heaven,  for  which  we  'hope  as  the  end  of  this 
life,  so  whatever  special  benefits  are  sought  by  men  here — 
wealth,  health,  eloquence,  or  learning — are  ordained  for  the  good 
of  the  multitude.  If  he  who  has  care  of  the  final  end  should  pre- 
side over  and  direct  those  who  have  care  of  the  means  to  that  end, 
then  the  king,  on  the  one  hand,  subject  to  the  dominion  and  gov- 

1  Quod  regnum  ordinari  debet  ad  beatitudinem  consequendam  principaliter. 
Several  other  chapters  treat  of  the  duties  of  a  king. 


134  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

ernment  administered  by  the  priest,  should,  on  the  other  hand, 
guide  and  control  all  human  tasks.  /  Whoever  finds  it  his  duty  to 
perform  a  task  which  is  directed  towards  some  further  purpose 
ought  to  strive  to  make  his  work  appropriate  to  that  purpose;  as 
the  smith  makes  the  sword  suitable  for  war,  and  the  builder 
arranges  the  house  so  that  it  will  be  fitted  for  a  dwelling. 

Since  the  end  of  the  life  which  we  live  well  at  present  is  heavenly 
*  happiness,  it  pertains  to  the  duty  of  the  king  to  make  the  life 
of  the  multitude  good,  in  accordance  with  what  is  suitable  for 
that  heavenly  happiness;  he  must  command  those  things  which 
^jlead  to  heavenly  happiness  and  forbid  their  opposites,  as  far  as 
possible.  The  way  to  true  happiness  and  the  obstructions  on 
the  way  are  revealed  in  the  divine  law,  the  teaching  of  which  is 
the  duty  of  priests.  .  .  .  The  king,  having  learned  the  divine 
law,  ought  to  study  especially  how  the  multitude  subject  to  him 
may  live  well.  This  study  has  three  parts:  first,  how  a  king  may 
institute  a  good  life  among  the  subject  multitude;  secondly,  how 
he  may  preserve  what  has  been  instituted;  thirdly,  how  he  may 
advance  what  he  has  preserved  to  a  better  condition. 

For  the  good  life  of  an  individual  two  things  are  needed:  one 
thing,  which  is  fundamental,  is  action  according  to  virtue  (for 
virtue  is  that  by  which  one  lives  well) ;  the  other,  which  is  secon- 
dary and  instrumental,  is  a  sufficiency  of  material  goods,  the  use 
of  which  is  necessary  to  virtuous  action.  The  unity  of  an  in- 
dividual man  is  produced  by  nature;  the  unity  of  a  multitude, 
which  is  called  peace,  must  be  obtained  through  the  efforts  of 
the  ruler.  Therefore,  to  establish  good  life  for  a  multitude  three 
things  are  required:  first,  that  the  multitude  should  be  brought 
into  the  unity  of  peace;  secondly,  that  the  multitude,  having  been 
united  by  the  bond  of  peace,  should  be  directed  to  good  action; 
for  as  a  man  can  do  nothing  well  unless  the  unity  of  his  parts  be 
first  established,  so  a  multitude  of  men,  lacking  the  unity  of  peace 
and  fighting  itself,  is  prevented  from  acting  well;  thirdly,  that 
through  the  care  of  the  ruler  there  should  be  provided  a  sufficient 
supply  of  the  necessaries  for  good  living.  When,  therefore,  good 
life  is  established  in  a  multitude  by  the  services  of  the  king,  he 
should  next  work  for  the  conservation  of  that  life. 

There  are  three  things  which  prevent  the  public  good  from 
enduring.  One  of  them  comes  from  nature.  For  the  good  of  the 
multitude  ought  to  be  established  not  for  one  time  but  for  all 
time.  But  since  men  are  mortal  they  cannot  live  forever;  nor 
while  they  live  are  they  always  equally  vigorous,  because  human 
life  is  subject  to  variations  and  men  are  not  fitted  to  peiform 


ST.  THOMAS  AQUINAS  135 

the  same  duties  throughout  their  lives.  Another  hindrance  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  public  good  comes  from  within  and  depends 
upon  the  perversity  of  wills,  which  are  either  too  weak  to  achieve 
those  things  which  common  welfare  requires,  or  are  hostile  to 
the  peace  of  the  multitude  and,  despising  justice,  disturb  the 
tranquillity  of  others.  The  third  impediment  to  the  preservation 
of  the  state  arises  from  without,  when  peace  is  upset  by  the 
encroachments  of  enemies  which  sometimes  altogether  destroy 
a  kingdom  or  a  city.  A  three-fold  responsibility,  therefore,  rests 
upon  the  king.  First,  for  the  succession  of  men  in  the  various 
offices,  since  by  divine  law  in  things  corruptible  they  cannot 
always  remain  the  same,  he  must  see  that  others  are  born  to  take 
the  places  left  vacant ;  thus  the  integrity  of  the  whole  and  the  good 
of  the  subject  multitude  are  preserved  by  the  care  of  the  king. 
Secondly,  by  his  laws  and  commands  he  must  keep  his  subjects 
from  wickedness  and  lead  them  into  works  of  virtue,  taking  his 
example  from  God,  who  has  given  laws  to  men  and  returns  re- 
wards to  those  who  keep  the  laws,  and  punishments  to  those  who 
transgress.  Thirdly,  it  rests  with  the  king  to  keep  the  multitude 
subject  to  him  safe  from  enemies.  For  it  would  avail  them 
nothing  to  escape  the  inner  perils  if  they  be  not  also  defended  from 
those  without. 

Finally,  for  the  good  government  of  a  multitude  there  remains 
a  third  thing  which  pertains  to  the  duty  of  the  king;  it  is  that  he 
take  care  for  their  advancement.  This  he  does  when  in  each 
of  the  matters  mentioned  above  he  corrects  whatever  is  wrong, 
supplies  whatever  is  lacking,  and  strives  to  perfect  whatever  can 
be  improved.  Wherefore,  the  Apostle  warns  the  faithful  always 
to  covet  earnestly  the  better  gifts. 

These  then  are  the  things  which  pertain  to  the  duty  of  a  king; 
each  should  be  considered  carefully  and  in  detail. 

SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life: 

Vaughn,  Life  and  Labours  of  St.  Thomas  of  Aquin,  chs.  i-xiii,  xxii. 
Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  A  ncient  and  Mediaeval,  ch.  viii. 
Poole,  Illustrations  of  Mediaeval  Thought,  pp.  239-246. 
Ueberweg,  History  of  Philosophy,  Vol.  I,  pp.  440-452. 
Vaughn,  Life  and  Labours  of  St.  Thomas  of  Aquin,  chs.  xv-xxi. 
Franck,  Reformatetirs  et  publicistes  de  V Europe,  moyen  age,  pp.  39-69. 
Bauman,  Die  Staatslehre  des  h.  Thomas  von  Aquino. 
Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  I,  pp.  367-402. 
Feugueray,  Essai  sur  les  doctrines  politiques  de  Saint  Thomas  d1  Aquin. 
Jourdain,  La  Philosophic  de  Saint  Thomas  d1  Aquin,  Vol.  I,  pp.  395-443- 
Vol.  II,  pp.  450-472. 


DANTE 


V.    DANTE  (1265-1321) 
INTRODUCTION 

The  next  important  work  in  political  theory  is  from  the  hand  of 
Dante,  the  first  learned  layman  of  the  middle  ages.  Dante's 
renown  rests  chiefly  upon  his  literary  productions.  But  the 
experiences  of  his  life  were  such  as  to  lead  him  to  careful  and  orig- 
inal thinking  upon  certain  questions  of  civil  government. 

It  is  not  practicable  to  give  here  anything  approaching  a  clear 
picture  of  the  complicated  political  history  of  Italy  in  Dante's 
time.  We  may  briefly  indicate  the  main  facts.  The  habitual 
antagonism  between  imperial  and  papal  authority  assumed  a 
special  phase  in  Italian  politics  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen- 
turies. The  German  Emperor  claimed  political  supremacy  over 
the  Italian  cities;  the  broader  conflict  thus  became  involved  in 
Italy  with  the  resistance  offered  by  these  cities,  and  their  defenders, 
to  the  Emperor's  designs.  Furthermore,  family  feuds  and  rival- 
ries among  political  factions  divided  upon  local  issues,  were  com- 
mon in  Italy  in  that  period;  and  these  local  strifes  became  en- 
tangled in  the  more  far-reaching  combat, 

Dante  was  born  in  Florence  at  the  time  when  these  contentions 
were  at  their  worst;  and  throughout  his  life  he  was  implicated  in 
the  many-sided  conflict.  His  family  was  of  the  Guelf  party,  which 
was  anti-imperial.  After  the  decisive  triumph  of  this  party  over 
the  Ghibelline,  or  pro-imperial,  party,  in  1289,  Dante  served 
several  times  in  the  councils  of  Florence.  He  subsequently 
aligned  himself  with  a  new  faction,  which,  though  an  offshoot 
from  the  Guelf  party,  was,  nevertheless,  inclined  to  Ghibelline 
opinions.  The  defeat  of  this  branch  by  the  dominant  Guelfs 
brought  about  the  banishment  of  Dante  from  Florence.  In 
exile  he  wrote  his  political  work — the  De  Monarchia. 

Dante  believed  that  the  success  of  the  efforts  of  the  Emperor, 
Henry  VII.,  to  bring  the  Italian  cities  under  his  sway  was  essen- 
tial to  peace  in  Italy;  and  the  inspiration  of  the  De  Monarchia  was 
the  author's  desire  to  find  a  power  that  would  be  competent  to 

139 


140  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

secure  for  Italy  permanent  deliverance  from  the  rivalries  and  strifes 
among  communities,  classes,  and  families.  He  established  his 
plea  for  peace  upon  a  broad  foundation.  He  held  that  for  the 
complete  development  of  man's  characteristic  faculties  a  life  of  re- 
pose was  indispensable,  and  that  lasting  peace  could  be  maintained 
only  under  a  universal  empire.  By  universal  empire  he  meant 
the  rule  of  a  single  head  controlling  the  whole  human  race  in  all 
temporal  relations  and  interests.  He  developed  this  main  thesis 
from  a  priori  principles;  but  he  drew  confirmation  for  his  conclu- 
sions from  analogies  in  nature,  from  scriptural  parallels,  and  from 
the  history  of  Rome.  The  argument  is  in  three  stages,  which 
form  the  subjects,  respectively,  of  the  three  books  of  the  volume. 
The  first  proposition  is  that  universal  monarchy  is  essential  to. 
human  welfare;  the  direct  action  of  this  common  sovereignty  is 
to  be  principally  as  mediator  and  as  preserver  of  peace,  national 
autonomy  and  individual  liberty  being  maintained  in  so  far  as 
compatible  with  the  primary  end  of  the  universal  state.  Secondly, 
the  preeminent  historical  type  of  the  universal  state  is  the  Roman 
Empire,  which  attained  its  extensive  sway  with  divine  sanction — 
evidenced  in  the  continued  success  accorded  by  divine  justice 
to  Roman  arms.  Thirdly,  imperial  authority  comes  directly  from 
God,  and  not  through  any  vicar;  in  other  words,  the  imperial  power 
is  independent  of  the  papal  power  in  all  secular  affairs. 


READINGS  FROM  THE  DE  MONARCHIA l 

1.     The  End  of  Civil  Order.     The  State* 

I.  It  very  greatly  concerns  all  men  on  whom  a  higher  nature 
has  impressed  the  love  of  truth,  that,  as  they  have  been  enriched 
by  the  labor  of  those  before  them,  so  they  also  should  labor 
for  those  that  are  to  come  after  them,  to  the  end  that  posterity 
may  receive  from  them  an  addition  to  its  wealth.  For  he  is  far 
astray  from  his  duty — let  him  not  doubt  it — who,  having  been 
trained  in  the  lessons  of  public  business,  cares  not  himself  to 
contribute  aught  to  the  public  good.  He  is  no  "tree  planted  by 

1  The  selections  are  taken  from  the  De  Monarchia,  translated  by  F.  J.  Church. 
London,  1879.  (Bound  with  Dante,  an  Essay,  by  R.  W.  Church.)  The  Mac- 
millan  Co. 

A  few  of  the  translator's  notes  are  reproduced. 

2Bk.  I,  i-v. 


DANTE  141 

the  water-side,  that  bringeth  forth  his  fruit  in  due  season."  He 
is  rather  the  devouring  whirlpool,  ever  engulfing,  but  restoring 
nothing.  Pondering,  therefore,  often  on  these  things,  lest  some 
day  I  should  have  to  answer  the  charge  of  the  talent  buried  in 
the  earth,  I  desire  not  only  to  show  the  budding  promise,  but  also 
to  bear  fruit  for  the  general  good,  and  to  set  forth  truths  by  others 
unattempted.  For  what  fruit  can  he  be  said  to  bear  who  should 
go  about  to  demonstrate  again  some  theorem  of  Euclid?  or  when 
Aristotle  has  shown  us  what  happiness  is,  should  show  it  to  us 
once  more?  or  when  Cicero  has  been  the  apologist  of  old  age, 
should  a  second  time  undertake  its  defence?  Such  squandering 
of  labor  would  only  engender  weariness  and  not  profit. 

But  seeing  that  among  other  truths,  ill-understood  yet  profitable, 
the  knowledge  touching  temporal  monarchy  is  at  once  most  profit- 
able and  most  obscure,  and  that  because  it  has  no  immediate 
reference  to  worldly  gain  it  is  left  unexplored  by  all,  therefore  it 
is  my  purpose  to  draw  it  forth  from  its  hiding-places,  as  well 
that  I  may  spend  my  toil  for  the  benefit  of  the  world,  as  that  I  may 
be  the  first  to  win  the  prize  of  so  great  an  achievement  to  my  own 
glory.  The  work  indeed  is  difficult,  and  I  am  attempting  what 
is  beyond  my  strength ;  but  I  trust  not  in  my  own  powers,  but  in 
the  light  of  that  Bountiful  Giver,  "  Who  giveth  to  all  men  liberally, 
and  upbraideth  not." 

II.  First,  therefore,  we  must  see  what  is  it  that  is  called 
Temporal  Monarchy,  in  its  idea,  so  to  speak,  and  according 
to  its  purpose.  Temporal  Monarchy,  then,  or,  as  men  call 
it,  the  Empire,  is  the  government  of  one  prince  above  all  men 
in  time,  or  in  those  things  and  over  those  things  which  are  measured 
by  time.  Three  great  questions  are  asked  concerning  it.  First, 
there  is  the  doubt  and  the  question,  is  it  necessary  for  the  welfare 
of  the  world?  Secondly,  did  the  Roman  people  take  to  itself  by 
right  the  office  of  Monarchy?  And  thirdly,  does  the  authority 
of  Monarchy  come  from  God  directly,  or  only  from  some  other 
minister  or  vicar  of  God? 

Now,  since  every  truth,  which  is  not  itself  a  first  principle, 
becomes  manifest  from  the  truth  of  some  first  principle,  it  is  there- 
fore necessary  in  every  inquiry  to  have  a  knowledge  of  the  first 
principle  involved,  to  which  by  analysis  we  may  go  back  for  the 
certainty  of  all  the  propositions  which  are  afterwards  accepted. 
And  since  this  treatise  is  an  inquiry,  we  must  begin  by  examining 
the  first  principle  on  the  strength  of  which  deductions  are  to  rest. 
It  must  be  understood  then  that  there  are  certain  things  which, 
since  they  are  not  subject  to  our  power,  are  matters  of  speculation, 


142  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

but  not  of  action:  such  are  Mathematics  and  Physics,  and  things 
divine.  But  there  are  some  things  which,  since  they  are  subject 
to  our  power,  are  matters  of  action  as  well  as  of  speculation,  and 
in  them  we  do  not  act  for  the  sake  of  speculation,  but  contrari- 
wise :  for  in  such  things  action  is  the  end.  Now,  since  the  matter 
which  we  have  in  hand  has  to  do  with  states,  nay,  with  the  very 
origin  and  principle  of  good  forms  of  government,  and  since  all 
that  concerns  states  is  subject  to  our  power,  it  is  manifest  that  our 
subject  is  not  in  the  first  place  speculation,  but  action.  And 
again,  since  in  matters  of  action  the  end  sought  is  the  first  principle 
and  cause  of  all  (for  that  it  is  which  first  moves  the  agent  to  act), 
it  follows  that  all  our  method  concerning  the  means  which  are 
set  to  gain  the  end  must  be  taken  from  the  end.  For  there  will 
be  one  way  of  cutting  wood  to  build  a  house,  and  another  to  build 
a  ship.  That  therefore,  if  it  exists,  which  is  the  ultimate  end  for 
the  universal  civil  order  of  mankind,  will  be  the  first  principle 
from  which  all  the  truth  of  our  future  deductions  will  be  sufficiently 
manifest.  But  it  is  folly  to  think  that  there  is  an  end  for  this 
and  for  that  particular  civil  order,  and  yet  not  one  end  for  all. 

III.  Now,  therefore,  we  must  see  what  is  the  end  of  the  whole 
civil  order  of  men;  and  when  we  have  found  this,  then,  as  the 
Philosopher  says  in  his  book  of  Nicomachus,  the  half  of  our 
labor  will  have  been  accomplished.  And  to  render  the  question 
clearer,  we  must  observe  that  as  there  is  a  certain  end  for  which 
nature  makes  the  thumb,  and  another,  different  from  this,  for 
which  she  makes  the  whole  hand,  and  again  another  for  which 
she  makes  the  arm,  and  another  different  from  all  for  which  she 
makes  the  whole  man;  so  there  is  one  end  for  which  she  orders  the 
individual  man,  and  another  for  which  she  orders  the  family, 
and  another  end  for  the  city,  and  another  for  the  kingdom,  and 
finally  an  ultimate  one  for  which  the  Everlasting  God,  by  His 
art  which  is  nature,  brings  into  being  the  whole  human  race. 
And  this  is  what  we  seek  as  a  first  principle  to  guide  our  whole 
inquiry. 

Let  it  then  be  understood  that  God  and  nature  make  nothing 
to  be  idle.  Whatever  comes  into  being,  exists  for  some  operation 
or  working.  For  no  created  essence  is  an  ultimate  end  in  the 
creator's  purpose,  so  far  as  he  is  a  creator,  but  rather  the  proper 
operation  of  that  essence.  Therefore  it  follows  that  the  operation 
does  not  exist  for  the  sake  of  the  essence,  but  the  essence  for  the 
sake  of  the  operation. 

There  is  therefore  a  certain  proper  operation  of  the  whole  body 
of  human  kind,  for  which  this  whole  body  of  men  in  all  its  multi- 


DANTE  143 

tudes  is  ordered  and  constituted,  but  to  which  no  one  man,  nor 
single  family,  nor  single  neighborhood,  nor  single  city,  nor  par- 
ticular kingdom  can  attain.  What  this  is  will  be  manifest, 
if  we  can  find  what  is  the  final  and  characteristic  capacity  of 
humanity  as  a  whole.  I  say  then  that  no  quality  which  is  shared 
by  different  species  of  things  is  the  distinguishing  capacity  of 
any  one  of  them.  For  were  it  so,  since  this  capacity  is  that  which 
makes  each  species  what  it  is,  it  would  follow  that  one  essence 
would  be  specifically  distributed  to  many  species,  which  is  im- 
possible. Therefore  the  ultimate  quality  of  men  is  not  existence, 
taken  simply;  for  the  elements  share  therein.  Nor  is  it  existence 
under  certain  conditions; l  for  we  find  this  in  minerals  too.  Nor 
is  it  existence  with  life;  for  plants  too  have  life.  Nor  is  it  per- 
cipient existence;  for  brutes  share  in  this  power.  It  is  to  be 
percipient 2  with  the  possibility  of  understanding,  for  this  quality 
falls  to  the  lot  of  none  but  man,  either  above  or  below  him.  For 
though  there  are  other  beings  which  with  him  have  understanding, 
yet  this  understanding  is  not  as  man's,  capable  of  development. 
For  such  beings  are  only  certain  intellectual  natures,  and  not 
anything  besides,  and  their  being  is  nothing  other  than  to  under- 
stand; which  is  without  interruption,  otherwise  they  would  not 
be  eternal.  It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  the  d(jsti.nguishing  quality 
gj[  humanity  is  the  faculty  or  the  power  of  understanding. 

And  because  this  faculty  cannot  be  realized  in  act  in  its  en- 
tirety at  one  time  by  a  single  man,  nor  by  any  of  the  individual 
societies  which  we  have  marked,  therefore  there  must  be  multi- 
tude in  the  human  race,  in  order  to  realize  it:  just  as  it  is  necessary 
that  there  should  be  a  multitude  of  things  which  can  be  brought 
into  being,  so  that  the  capacity  of  the  primal  matter  for  being 
acted  on  may  be  ever  open  to  what  acts  on  it.  For  if  this  were 
not  so,  we  could  speak  of  a  capacity  apart  from  its  substance, 
which  is  impossible.  And  with  this  opinion  Averroes,  in  his 
comment  on  [Aristotle's]  treatise  on  the  Soul,  agrees.  For  the 
capacity  for  understanding,  of  which  I  speak,  is  concerned  not  only 
with  universal  forms  or  species,  but  also,  by  a  kind  of  extension, 
with  particular  ones.  Therefore  it  is  commonly  said  that  the 
sjDeculative  understanding  becomes  practical  by  extension;  and 
then  its  end  is  to  do  and  to  make.  This  I  say  in  reference  to  things 
which  may  be  done,  which  are  regulated  by  political  wisdom,  and 
in  reference  to  things  which  may  be  made,  which  are  regulated 
by  art;  all  which  things  wait  as  handmaidens  on  the  speculative 

l"Esse  complexionatum." — Ch. 

2  "  Apprehensivum  per  intellectum  possibilem." — Ch. 


144  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

intellect,  as  on  that  best  good,  for  which  the  Primal  Goodness 
created  the  human  race.  Hence  the  saying  of  The  Politics  that 
those  who  are  strong  in  understanding  are  the  natural  rulers 
of  others. 

IV.  It  has  thus  been  sufficiently  set  forth  that  the  groper  work 
o£*tfee  human  race,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  to  set  in  action  'the  whole 
capacity  of  that  understanding  which  is  capable  of  development: 
first  in  the  way  of  spoliation,  and  then,  by  its  extension,  in  the 
way  of  action.    And  seeing  that  what  is  true  of  a  part  is  true 
also  of  the  whole,  and  that  it  is  by  rest  and  quiet  that  the  individual 
man  becomes  perfect  in  wisdom  and  prudence;  so  the  human  race, 
by  living  in  the  calm  and  tranquillity  of  peace,  applies  itself  most 
freely  and  easily  to  its  proper  work;  a  work  which  according  to 
the  saying,  "Thou  hast  made  him  a  little  lower  than  the  angels," 
is  almost  divine.     Whence  it  is  manifest  that  of  all  things  that 
are  ordered  to  secure  blessings  to  men,  peace  is  the  best.    And 
hence  the  word  which  sounded  to  the  shepherds  from  above 
was  not  riches,  nor  pleasure,  nor  honor,  nor  length  of  life,  nor 
health,  nor  strength,  nor  beauty;  but  peace.     For  the  heavenly 
host  said:  "Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth,  peace  to 
men  of  goodwill."    Therefore  also,  "Peace  be  with  you,"  was  the 
salutation  of  the  Saviour  of  mankind.     For  it  behoved  Him, 
who  was  the  greatest  of  saviours,  to  utter  in  His  greeting  the 
greatest  of  saving  blessings.     And  this  custom  His  disciples,  too, 
chose  to  preserve;  and  Paul  also  did  the  same  in  his  greetings,  as 
may  appear  manifest  to  all. 

Now  that  we  have  declared  these  matters,  it  is  plain  what  is 
the  better,  nay  the  best,  way  in  which  mankind  may  attain  to 
do  its  proper  work.  And  consequently  we  have  seen  the  readiest 
means  by  which  to  arrive  at  the  point,  for  which  all  our  works 
are  ordered,  as  their  ultimate  end;  namely,  the  universal  peace, 
which  is  to  be  assumed  as  the  first  principle  for  our  deductions. 
As  we  said,  this  assumption  was  necessary,  for  it  is  as  a  sign-post 
to  us,  that  into  it  we  may  resolve  all  that  has  to  be  proved,  as 
into  a  most  manifest  truth. 

V.  As  therefore  we  have  already  said,  there  are  three  doubts, 
and  these  doubts  suggest  three  questions,  concerning  Temporal 
Monarchy,  which  in  more  common  speech  is  called  the  Empire; 
and  our  purpose  is,  as  we  explained,  to  inquire  concerning  these 
questions  in  their  given  order,  and  starting  from  the  first  principle 
which  we  have  just  laid  down.     The  first  question,   then,  is 
whether  Temporal  Monarchy  is  necessary  for  the  welfare  of  the 
world;  and  that  it  is  necessary  can,  I  think,  be  shown  by  the 


DANTE  145 

strongest  and  most  manifest  arguments;  for  nothing,  either  of 
reason  or  of  authority,  opposes  me.  Let  us  first  take  the  authority 
of  the  Philosopher  in  his  Politics.  There,  on  his  venerable  author- 
ity, it  is  said  that  where  a  number  of  things  are  arranged  to  attain 
an  end,  it  behoves  one  of  them  to  regulate  or  govern  the  others, 
and  the  others  to  submit.  And  it  is  not  only  the  authority  of 
his  illustrious  name  which  makes  this  worthy  of  belief,  but  also 
reason,  instancing  particulars. 

If  we  take  the  case  of  a  single  man,  we  shall  see  the  same  rule 
manifested  in  him:  all  his  powers  are  ordered  to  gain  happiness; 
but  his  understanding  is  what  regulates  and  governs  all  the  others; 
and  otherwise  he  would  never  attain  to  happiness.  Again,  take 
a  single  household:  its  end  is  to  fit  the  members  thereof  to  live 
well;  but  there  must  be  one  to  regulate  and  rule  it,  who  is  called 
the  father  of  the  family,  or,  it  may  be,  one  who  holds  his  office. 
As  the  Philosopher  says:  " Every  house  is  ruled  by  the  oldest." 
And,  as  Homer  says,  it  is  his  duty  to  make  rules  and  laws  for  the 
rest.  Hence  the  proverbial  curse:  "Mayst  thou  have  an  equal 
at  home."  Take  a  single  village:  its  end  is  suitable  assistance 
as  regards  persons  and  goods,  but  one  in  it  must  be  the  ruler  of 
the  rest,  either  set  over  them  by  another,  or  with  their  consent, 
the  head  man  amongst  them.  If  it  be  not  so,  not  only  do  its 
inhabitants  fail  of  this  mutual  assistance,  but  the  whole  neighbor- 
hood is  sometimes  wholly  ruined  by  the  ambition  of  many,  who 
each  of  them  wish  to  rule.  If,  again,  we  take  a  single  city: 
its  end  is  to  secure  a  good  and^sufficientjfe  to  the  citizens;  but 
one  man  must  be  ruler  in  imperTectas  well  as  in  good  forms  of 
the  state.  If  it  is  otherwise,  not  only  is  the  end  of  civil  life  lost, 
but  the  city  too  ceases  to  be  what  it  was.  Lastly,  if  we  take  any 
one  kingdom,  of  which  the  end  is  the  same  as  that  of  a  city,  only 
with  greater  security  for  its  tranquillity,  there  must  be  one  king  to 
rule  and  govern.  For  if  this  is  not  so,  not  only  do  his  subjects 
miss  their  end,  but  the  kingdom  itself  falls  to  destruction,  accord- 
ing to  that  word  of  the  infallible  truth:  " Every  kingdom  divided 
against  itself  shall  be  brought  to  desolation."  If  then  this  holds 
good  in  these  cases,  and  in  each  individual  thing  which  is  ordered 
to  one  certain  end,  what  we  have  laid  down  is  true. 

Now  it  is  plain  that  the  whole  human  race  is  ordered  to  gain 
some  end,  as  has  been  before  shown.  There  must,  therefore, 
be  one  to  guide  and  govern,  and  the  proper  title  for  this  office 
is  Monarch  or  Emperor.  And  so  it  is  plain  that  Monarchy  or 
the  Empire  is  necessary  for  the  welfare  of  the  world. 


146  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

2.     Universal  Empire  l 

X.  Wherever  there  is  controversy,  there  ought  to  be  judg- 
ment, otherwise  there  would  be  imperfection  without  its  proper 
remedy,2  which  is  impossible;  for  God  and  Nature,  in  things 
necessary,  do  not  fail  in  their  provisions.  But  it  is  manifest 
that  there  may  be  controversy  between  any  two  princes,  where 
the  one  is  not  subject  to  the  other,  either  from  the  fault  of  them- 
selves or  even  of  their  subjects.  Therefore  between  them  there 
should  be  means  of  judgment.  And  since,  when  one  is  not 
subject  to  the  other,  he  cannot  be  judged  by  the  other  (for  there 
is  no  rule  of  equals  over  equals),  there  must  be  a  third  prince  of 
wider  jurisdiction,  within  the  circle  of  whose  laws  both  may 
come.  Either  he  will  or  he  will  not  be  a  Monarch.  If  he  is,  we 
have  what  we  sought;  if  not,  then  this  one  again  will  have  an 
equal,  who  is  not  subject  to  his  jurisdiction,  and  then  again  we 
have  need  of  a  third.  And  so  we  must  either  go  on  to  infinity, 
which  is  impossible,  or  we  must  come  to  that  judge  who  is  first 
and  highest;  by  whose  judgment  all  controversies  shall  be  either 
directly  or  indirectly  decided;  and  he  will  be  Monarch  or  Emperor. 
Monarchy  is  therefore  necessary  to  the  world,  and  this  the 
Philosopher  saw  when  he  said:  "The  world  is  not  intended  to  be 
disposed  in  evil  order;  'in  a  multitude  of  rulers  there  is  evil, 
therefore  let  there  be  one  prince/  ' 

XII.  Again,  the  human  race  is  ordered  best  when  it  is  most 
free.  This  will  be  manifest  if  we  see  what  is  the  principle  of 
freedom.  It  must  be  understood  that  the  first  principle  of  our 
freedom  is  freedom  of  will,  which  many  have  in  their  mouth, 
but  few  understand.  For  they  come  so  far  as  to  say  that  freedom 
of  the  will  means  a  free  judgment  concerning  will.  And  this  is 
true.  But  what  is  meant  by  the  words  is  far  from  them :  and  they 
do  just  as  our  logicians  do  all  day  long  with  certain  propositions 
which  are  set  as  examples  in  the  books  of  logic,  as  that,  "the  three 
angles  of  a  triangle  are  equal  to  two  right  angles." 

Therefore  I  say  that  Judgment  is  between  Apprehension  and 
Appetite.  First,  a  man  apprehends  a  thing;  then  he  judges  it 
to  be  good  or  bad;  then  he  pursues  or  avoids  it  accordingly.  If 
therefore  the  Judgment  guides  the  Appetite  wholly,  and  in  no  way 
is  forestalled  by  the  Appetite,  then  is  the  Judgment  free.  But 
if  the  Appetite  in  any  way  at  all  forestalls  the  Judgment  and 

1  Bk.  I,  x,  xii,  xv-xvi. 

2 "Sine  proprio  perfeclivo" — Ch. 


DANTE  147 

guides  it,  then  the  Judgment  cannot  be  free:  it  is  not  its  own: 
it  is  captive  to  another  power.  Therefore  the  brute  beasts  cannot 
have  freedom  of  Judgment;  for  in  them  the  Appetite  always 
forestalls  the  Judgment.  Therefore,  too,  it  is  that  intellectual 
beings  whose  wills  are  unchangeable,  and  souls  which  are  separate 
from  the  body,  which  have  gone  hence  in  peace,  do  not  lose  the 
freedom  of  their  wills,  because  their  wishes  cannot  change;  nay, 
it  is  in  full  strength  and  completeness  that  their  wills  are  free. 

It  is  therefore  again  manifest  that  this  liberty,  or  this  principle 
of  all  our  liberty,  is  the  greatest  gift  bestowed  by  God  on  man- 
kind: by  it  alone  we  gain  happiness  as  men:  by  it  alone  we  gain 
happiness  elsewhere  as  gods.  But  if  this  is  so,  who  will  say 
that  humankind  is  not  in  its  best  state,  when  it  can  most  use 
this  principle?  But  he  who  lives  under  a  Monarchy  is  most  free. 
Therefore  let  it  be  understood  that  he  is  free  who  exists  not  for 
another's  sake  but  for  his  own,  as  the  Philosopher,  in  his  Treatise 
of  simple  Being,  thought.  For  everything  which  exists  for  the 
sake  of  some  other  thing  is  necessitated  by  that  other  thing,  as 
a  road  has  run  to  its  ordained  end.  Men  exist  for  themselves, 
and  not  at  the  pleasure  of  others,  only  if  a  Monarch  rules;  for 
then  only  are  the  perverted  forms  of  government  set  right,  while 
democracies,  oligarchies,  and  tyrannies,  drive  mankind  into 
slavery,  as  is  obvious  to  any  who  goes  about  among  them  all; 
and  public  power  is  in  the  hands  of  kings  and  aristocracies,  which 
they  call  the  rule  of  the  best,  and  champions  of  popular  liberty. 
And  because  the  Monarch  loves  his  subjects  much,  as  we  have 
seen,  he  wishes  all  men  to  be  good,  which  cannot  be  the  case  in 
perverted  forms  of  government:  therefore  the  Philosopher  says, 
in  his  Politics:  "In  the  bad  state  the  good  man  is  a  bad  citizen, 
but  in  the  good  state  the  two  coincide."  Good  states  in  this 
way  aim  at  liberty,  that  in  them  men  may  live  for  themselves. 
The  citizens  exist  not  for  the  good  of  consuls,  nor  the  nation  for 
the  good  of  its  king;  but  the  consuls  for  the  good  of  the  citizens, 
and  the  king  for  the  good  of  his  nation.  For  as  the  laws  are  made 
to  suit  the  state,  and  not  the  state  to  suit  the  laws,  so  those  who 
live  under  the  laws  are  not  ordered  for  the  legislator,  but  he  for 
them;  as  also  the  Philosopher  holds,  in  what  he  has  left  us  on  the 
present  subject.  Hence,  too,  it  is  clear  that  although  the  king 
or  the  consul  rule  over  the  other  citizens  in  respect  of  the  means 
of  government,  yet  in  respect  of  the  end  of  government  they 
are  the  servants  of  the  citizens,  and  especially  the  Monarch,  who, 
without  doubt,  must  be  held  the  servant  of  all.  Thus  it  becomes 
clear  that  the  Monarch  is  bound  by  the  end  appointed  to  himself 


;H 

'¥  148  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

H  in  making  his  laws.     Therefore  mankind  is  best  off  under  a 
Monarchy,  and  hence  it  follows  that  Monarchy  is  necessary 
i    for  the  welfare  of  the  world. 

XV.  I  say  also  that  Being,  and  Unity,  and  the  Good  come  in 
order  after  the  fifth  mode  of  priority.1  For  Being  comes  by 
nature  before  Unity,  and  Unity  before  Good.  Where  Being  is 
most,  there  Unity  is  greatest;  and  where  Unity  is  greatest,  there 
Good  is  also  greatest;  and  in  proportion  as  anything  is  far  from 
Being  in  its  highest  form,  is  it  far  from  Unity,  and  therefore  from 
Good.  Therefore  in  every  kind  of  things,  that  which  is  most  one 
r-  is  best,  as  |he  ^Philosopher  holds  in  the  treatise  about  simple 
Being.  Therefore  it  appears  that  to  be  one  is  the  root  of  Good, 
and  to  be  many  the  root  of  Evil.  Therefore,  Pythagoras  in  his 
parallel  tables  placed  the  one,  or  Unity,  under  the  line  of  good, 
and  the  many  under  the  line  of  Evil;  as  appears  from  the  first  book 
of  the  Metaphysics.  Hence  we  may  see  that  to  sin  is  nothing 
else  than  to  pass  on  from  the  one  which  we  despise  and  to  seek 
many  things,  as  the  Psalmist  saw  when  he  said:  "By  the  fruit 
of  their  corn  and  wine  and  oil,  are  they  multiplied." 

Hence  it  is  plain  that  whatever  is  good,  is  good  for  this  reason, 
that  it  consists  in  unity.  And  because  concord  is  a  good  thing 
in  so  far  as  it  is  concord,  it  is  manifest  that  it  consists  in  a  certain 
unity,  as  its  proper  root,  the  nature  of  which  will  appear  if  we 
find  the  real  nature  of  concord.  Concord  then  is  the  uniform  motion 
of  many  wills;  and  hence  it  appears  that  a  unity  of  wills,  by  which 
is  meant  their  uniform  motion,  is  the  root  of  concord,  nay,  concord 
itself.  For  as  we  should  say  that  many  clods  of  earth  are  con- 
cordant, because  that  they  all  gravitate  together  towards  the 
center;  and  that  many  flames  are  concordant  because  that  they 
all  ascend  together  towards  the  circumference,  if  they  did  this 
of  their  own  free  will,  so  we  say  that  many  men  are  in  concord 
because  that  they  are  all  moved  together,  as  regards  their  willing, 
to  one  thing,  which  one  thing  is  formally  in  their  wills  just  as 
there  is  one  quality  formally  in  the  clods  of  earth,  that  is  gravity, 
and  one  in  the  flame  of  fire,  that  is  lightness.  For  the  force 
of  willing  is  a  certain  power;  but  the  quality  of  good  which  it 
apprehends  is  its  form;  which  form,  like  as  others,  being  one  is 
multiplied  in  itself,  according  to  the  multiplication  of  the  matters 
which  receive  it,  as  the  soul,  and  numbers,  and  other  forms  which 
belong  to  what  is  compound. 

1  Arist.  Categ.,  e.  g. :  Priority  is  said  in  five  ways.  I.  First  in  time.  2.  First  in 
pre-supposition.  3.  First  in  order.  4.  First  in  excellence.  5.  First  in  logical 
sequence. — Ch. 


DANTE  149 

To  explain  our  assumption  as  we  proposed,  let  us  argue  thus: 
All  concord  depends  on  unity  which  is  in  wills;  the  human  race, 
when  it  is  at  its  best,  is  a  kind  of  concord;  for  as  one  man  at  his 
best  is  a  kind  of  concord,  and  as  the  like  is  true  of  the  family,  the 
city,  and  the  kingdom;  so  is  it  of  the  whole  human  race.  There- 
fore the  human  race  at  its  best  depends  on  the  unity  which  is 
in  will.  But  this  cannot  be  unless  there  be  one  will  to  be  the 
single  mistress  and  regulating  influence  of  all  the  rest.  For  the 
wills  of  men,  on  account  of  the  blandishments  of  youth,  require 
one  to  direct  them,  as  Aristotle  shows  in  the  tenth  book  of  his 
Ethics.  And  this  cannot  be  unless  there  is  one  prince  over  all, 
whose  will  shall  be  the  mistress  and  regulating  influence  of  all  the 
others.  But  if  all  these  conclusions  be  true,  as  they  are,  it  is 
necessary  for  the  highest  welfare  of  the  human  race  that  there 
should  be  a  Monarch  in  the  world;  and  therefore  Monarchy  is 
necessary  for  the  good  of  the  world. 

XVI.  To  all  these  reasons  alleged  above  a  memorable  ex- 
perience adds  its  confirmation.  I  mean  that  condition  of  man- 
kind which  the  Son  of  God,  when,  for  the  salvation  of  man,  He 
was  about  to  put  on  man,  either  waited  for,  or,  at  the  moment 
when  He  willed,  Himself  so  ordered.  For  if,  from  the  fall  of  our 
first  parents,  which  was  the  turning  point  at  which  all  our  going 
astray  began,  we  carry  our  thoughts  over  the  distribution  of  the 
human  race  and  the  order  of  its  times,  we  shall  find  that  never 
but  under  the  divine  Augustus,  who  was  sole  ruler,  and  under  whom 
a  perfect  Mc^arcRy^exTste^i,  was  the  world  everywhere  quiet. 
And  that  then  the  human  race  was  happy  in  the  tranquillity  of 
universal  peace,  this  is  the  witness  of  all  writers  of  history;  this 
is  the  witness  of  famous  poets;  this,  too,  he  who  wrote  the  story  of 
the  " meekness  and  gentleness  of  Christ"  has  thought  fit  to 
attest.  And  last  of  all,  Paul  has  called  that  most  blessed  condi- 
tion "the  fulness  of  the  times."  For  then,  indeed,  time  was  full, 
and  all  the  things  of  time;  because  no  office  belonging  to  our 
felicity  wanted  its  minister.  But  how  the  world  has  fared  since 
that  "seamless  robe"  has  suffered  rending  by  the  talons  of  am- 
bition, we  may  read  in  books;  would  that  we  might  not  see  it 
with  our  eyes.  Oh,  race  of  mankind!  what  storms  must  toss  thee, 
what  losses  must  thou  endure,  what  shipwrecks  must  buffet  thee, 
as  long  as  thou,  a  beast  of  many  heads,  strivest  after  contrary 
things!  Thou  art  sick  in  both  thy  faculties  of  understanding; 
thou  art  sick  in  thine  affections.  Unanswerable  reasons  fail  to 
heal  thy  higher  understanding;  the  very  sight  of  experience 
convinces  not  thy  lower  understanding;  not  even  the  sweetness 


150  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

of  divine  persuasion  charms  thy  affections,  when  it  breathes  into 
thee  through  the  music  of  the  Holy  Ghost:  "Behold,  how  good 
and  how  pleasant  a  thing  it  is,  brethren,  to  dwell  together  in 
unity."  l 


8.     The  Divine  Basis  of  Temporal  Authority  2 

I.  "He  hath  shut  the  lions'  mouths  and  they  have  not  hurt 
me,  forasmuch  as  before  Him  justice  was  found  in  me."  3  At 
the  beginning  of  this  work  I  proposed  to  examine  into  three  ques- 
tions, according  as  the  subject-matter  would  permit  me.  Con- 
cerning the  two  first  questions  our  inquiry,  as  I  think,  has  been 
sufficiently  accomplished  in  the  preceding  books.  It  remains  to 
treat  of  the  third  question;  and,  perchance,  it  may  arouse  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  indignation  against  me,  for  the  truth  of  it  cannot 
appear  without  causing  shame  to  certain  men.  But  seeing  that 
truth  from  its  changeless  throne  appeals  tome — that  Solomon,  too, 
entering  on  the  forest  of  his  proverbs,  teaches  me  in  his  own  per- 
son "to  meditate  on  truth,  to  hate  the  wicked;"4  seeing  that 
the  Philosopher,  my  instructor  in  morals,  bids  me,  for  the  sake  of 
truth,  to  put  aside  what  is  dearest;  I  will,  therefore,  take  confidence 
from  the  words  of  Daniel  in  which  the  power  of  God,  the  shield 
of  the  defenders  of  truth,  is  set  forth,  and,  according  to  the  exhorta- 
tion of  St.  Paul,  "putting  on  the  breast-plate  of  faith,"  and  in  the 
iheat  of  that  coal  which  one  of  the  seraphim  had  taken  from  off 
the  altar,  and  laid  on  the  lips  of  Isaiah,  I  will  enter  on  the  present 
contest,  and,  by  the  arm  of  Him  who  delivered  us  by  His  blood 
from  the  powers  of  darkness,  drive  out  from  the  lists  the  wicked 
and  the  liar,  in  the  sight  of  all  the  world.  Why  should  I  fear, 
when  the  Spirit,  which  is  co-eternal  with  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
saith  by  the  mouth  of  David:  "The  righteous  shall  be  had  in 
everlasting  remembrance,  he  shall  not  be  afraid  of  evil  tidings"?  6 

The  present  question,  then,  concerning  which  we  have  to 
inquire,  is  between  two  great  luminaries,  the  Roman  Pontiff 
and  the  Roman  Prince:  and  the  question  is,  does  the  authority 
of  the  Roman  Monarch,  who,  as  we  have  proved  in  the  second 
book,  is  the  monarch  of  the  world,  depend  immediately  on  God, 
or  on  some  minister  or  vicar  of  God;  by  whom  I  understand  the 
successor  of  Peter,  who  truly  has  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven? 

1  Ps.  cxxxiii.  I.  2  Bk.  Ill,  i,  iii,  xvi. 

8  Dan.  yi.  22.    Vulg.  4  Prov.  vii.  7.    Vulg. 

6  Ps.  cxii.  7. 


DANTE  151 

III.  At  the  outset  we  must  note  in  reference  to  this  third 
question,  that  the  truth  of  the  first  question  had  to  be  made 
manifest  rather  to  remove  ignorance  than  to  end  a  dispute.  In 
the  second  question  we  sought  equally  to  remove  ignorance  and 
to  end  a  dispute.  For  there  are  many  things  of  which  we  are 
ignorant,  but  concerning  which  we  do  not  quarrel.  In  geometry 
we  know  not  how  to  square  the  circle,  but  we  do  not  quarrel  on 
that  point.  The  theologian  does  not  know  the  number  of  the 
angels,  but  he  does  not  quarrel  about  the  number.  The  Egyptian 
is  ignorant  of  the  political  system  of  the  Scythians,  but  he  does 
not  therefore  quarrel  concerning  it.  But  the  truth  in  this  third 
question  provokes  so  much  quarreling  that,  whereas  in  other 
matters  ignorance  is  commonly  the  cause  of  quarreling,  here 
quarreling  is  the  cause  of  ignorance.  For  this  always  happens 
where  men  are  hurried  by  their  wishes  past  what  they  see  by  their 
reason;  in  this  evil  bias  they  lay  aside  the  light  of  reason,  and  being 
dragged  on  blindly  by  their  desires,  they  obstinately  deny  that 
they  are  blind.  And,  therefore,  it  often  follows  not  only  that 
falsehood  has  its  own  inheritance,  but  that  many  men  issue 
forth  from  their  own  bounds  and  stray  through  the  foreign  camp, 
where  they  understand  nothing,  and  no  man  understands  them; 
and  so  they  provoke  some  to  anger,  and  some  to  scorn,  and  not  a 
few  to  laughter. 

Now  three  classes  of  men  chiefly  strive  against  the  truth  which 
we  are  trying  to  prove. 

First,  the  Chief  Pontiff,  Vicar  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  the 
successor  of  Peter,  to  whom  we  owe,  not  indeed  all  that  we  owe 
to  Christ,  but  all  that  we  owe  to  Peter,  contradicts  this  truth, 
urged  it  may  be  by  zeal  for  the  keys;  and  also  other  pastors  of 
the  Christian  sheepfolds,  and  others  whom  I  believe  to  be  only 
led  by  zeal  for  our  mother,  the  Church.  These  all,  perchance 
from  zeal  and  not  from  pride,  withstand  the  truth  which  I  am 
about  to  prove. 

But  there  are  certain  others  in  whom  obstinate  greed  has  ex- 
tinguished the  light  of  reason,  who  are  of  their  father  the  devil, 
and  yet  pretend  to  be  sons  of  the  Church.  They  not  only  stir 
up  quarrels  in  this  question,  but  they  hate  the  name  of  the  most 
sacred  office  of  Prince,  and  would  shamelessly  deny  the  principles 
which  we  have  laid  down  for  this  and  the  previous  questions. 

There  is  also  a  third  class  called  Decretalists,  utterly  without 
knowledge  or  skill  in  philosophy  or  theology,  who,  relying  entirely 
on  their  Decretals  (which  doubtless,  I  think,  should  be  venerated), 
and  hoping,  I  believe,  that  these  Decretals  will  prevail,  disparage 


152  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  power  of  the  Empire.  And  no  wonder,  for  I  have  heard  of 
them,  speaking  of  these  Decretals,  assert  shamelessly  that  the 
traditions  of  the  Church  are  the  foundation  of  the  faith.  May 
this  wickedness  be  taken  away  from  the  thoughts  of  men  by  those 
who  antecedently  to  the  traditions  of  the  Church,  have  believed 
in  Christ  the  Son  of  God,  whether  to  come,  or  present,  or  as 
having  already  suffered;  and  who  from  their  faith  have  hoped, 
and  from  their  hope  have  kindled  into  love,  and  who,  burn- 
ing with  love,  will,  the  world  doubts  not,  be  made  co-heirs  with 
Him. 

And  that  such  arguers  may  be  excluded  once  for  all  from  the 
present  debate,  it  must  be  noted  that  part  of  the  Scripture  was 
before  the  Church,  that  part  of  it  came  with  the  Church,  and  part 
after  the  Church. 

Before  the  Church  were  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament — the 
covenant  which  the  Psalmist  says  was  "commanded  for  ever," 
of  which  the  Church  speaks  to  her  Bridegroom,  saying:  "Draw 
me  after  thee."  l 

With  the  Church  came  those  venerable  chief  Councils,  with 
which  no  faithful  Christian  doubts  but  that  Christ  was  present. 
For  we  have  his  own  words  to  His  disciples  when  He  was  about  to 
ascend  into  heaven:  "Lo,  I  am  with  you  always,  even  unto  the 
end  of  the  world,"  to  which  Matthew  testifies.  There  are  also 
the  writings  of  the  doctors,  Augustine  and  others,  of  whom,  if 
any  doubt  that  they  were  aided  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  either  he  has 
never  beheld  their  fruit,  or  if  he  has  beheld,  he  has  never  tasted 
thereof. 

After  the  Church  are  the  traditions  which  they  call  Decretals, 
which,  although  they  are  to  be  venerated  for  their  apostolical 
authority,  yet  we  must  not  doubt  that  they  are  to  be  held  inferior 
to  fundamental  Scripture,  seeing  that  Christ  rebuked  the  Pharisees 
for  this  very  thing;  for  when  they  had  asked:  "Why  do  thy 
disciples  transgress  the  tradition  of  the  elders?  "  (for  they  neglected 
the  washing  of  hands),  He  answered  them  as  Matthew  testifies: 
"Why  do  ye  also  transgress  the  commandment  of  God  by  your 
tradition?"  Thus  He  intimates  plainly  that  tradition  was  to 
have  a  lower  place. 

But  if  the  traditions  of  the  Church  are  after  the  Church,  it 
follows  that  the  Church  had  not  its  authority  from  traditions, 
but  rather  traditions  from  the  Church;  and,  therefore,  the  men  of 
whom  we  speak,  seeing  that  they  have  nought  but  traditions,  must 
be  excluded  from  the  debate.  For  those  who  seek  after  this 

1  Ps.  cxi.  9.     Cant.  i.  3. 


DANTE  153 

truth  must  proceed  in  their  inquiry  from  those  things  from  which 
flows  the  authority  of  the  Church. 

Further,  we  must  exclude  others  who  boast  themselves  to  be 
white  sheep  in  the  flock  of  the  Lord,  when  they  have  the  plumage 
of  crows.  These  are  the  children  of  wickedness,  who,  that  they 
may  be  able  to  follow  their  evil  ways,  put  shame  on  their  mother, 
drive  out  their  brethren,  and  when  they  have  done  all  will  allow 
none  to  judge  them.  Why  should  we  seek  to  reason  with  these, 
when  they  are  led  astray  by  their  evil  desires,  and  so  cannot  see 
even  our  first  principle? 

Therefore  there  remains  the  controversy  only  with  the  other 
sort  of  men  who  are  influenced  by  a  certain  kind  of  zeal  for  their 
mother  the  Church,  and  yet  know  not  the  truth  which  is  sought 
for.  With  these  men,  therefore — strong  in  the  reverence  which 
a  dutiful  son  owes  to  his  father,  which  a  duitful  son  owes  to  his 
mother,  dutiful  to  Christ,  dutiful  to  the  Church,  dutiful  to  the 
Chief  Shepherd,  dutiful  to  all  who  profess  the  religion  of  Christ 
— I  begin  in  this  book  the  contest  for  the  maintenance  of  the  truth. 

XVI.  Although  it  has  been  proved  in  the  preceding  chapter 
that  the  authority  of  the  Empire  has  not  its  cause  in  the  authority 
of  the  Supreme  Pontiff;  for  we  have  shown  that  this  argument 
led  to  absurd  results;  yet  it  has  not  been  entirely  shown  that  the 
authority  of  the  Empire  depends  directly  upon  God,  except  as  a 
result  from  our  argument.  For  it  is  a  consequence  that,  if  the 
authority  comes  not  from  the  vicar  of  God,  it  must  come  from  God 
Himself.  And  therefore,  for  the  complete  determination  of  the 
question  proposed,  we  have  to  prove  directly  that  the  emperor 
or  monarch  of  the  world  stands  in  an  immediate  relation  to  the 
King  of  the  universe,  who  is  God. 

For  the  better  comprehending  of  this,  it  must  be  recognized  that 
man  alone,  of  all  created  things,  holds  a  position  midway  between 
things  corruptible  and  things  incorruptible;  and  therefore  philoso- 
phers rightly  liken  him  to  a  dividing  line  between  two  hemispheres. 
For  man  consists  of  two  essential  parts,  namely,  the  soul  and 
the  body.  If  he  be  considered  in  relation  to  his  body  only,  he 
is  corruptible;  but  if  he  be  considered  in  relation  to  his  soul  only, 
he  is  incorruptible.  And  therefore  the  Philosopher  spoke  well 
concerning  the  incorruptible  soul  when  he  said  in  the  second  book 
"of  the  Soul:"  "It  is  this  alone  which  may  be  separated,  as  being 
eternal,  from  the  corruptible." 

If,  therefore,  man  holds  this  position  midway  between  the  cor- 
ruptible and  the  incorruptible,  since  every  middle  nature  partakes 


154  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

of  both  extremes,  man  must  share  something  of  each  nature.  And 
since  every  nature  is  ordained  to  gain  some  final  end,  it  follows 
that  for  man  there  is  a  double  end.  For  as  he  alone  of  all  beings 
participates  both  in  the  corruptible  and  the  incorruptible,  so  he 
alone  of  all  beings  is  ordained  to  gain  two  ends,  whereby  one  is 
his  end  in  so  far  as  he  is  corruptible,  and  the  other  in  so  far  as  he 
is  incorruptible. 

Two  ends,  therefore,  have  been  laid  down  by  the  ineffable 
providence  of  God  for  man  to  aim  at:  the  blessedness  of  this  life, 
which  consists  in  the  exercise  of  his  natural  powers,  and  which  is 
prefigured  in  the  earthly  Paradise;  and  next,  the  blessedness  of 
the  life  eternal,  which  consists  in  the  fruition  of  the  sight  of  God's 
countenance,  and  to  which  man  by  his  own  natural  powers  cannot 
rise,  if  he  be  not  aided  by  the  divine  light;  and  this  blessedness  is 
understood  by  the  heavenly  Paradise. 

But  to  these  different  kinds  of  blessedness,  as  to  different 
conclusions,  we  must  come  by  different  means.  For  at  the  first 
we  may  arrive  by  the  lessons  of  philosophy,  if  only  we  will  follow 
them,  by  acting  in  accordance  with  the  moral  and  intellectual 
virtues.  But  at  the  second  we  can  only  arrive  by  spiritual 
lessons,  transcending  human  reason,  so  that  we  follow  them  in 
accordance  with  the  theological  virtues,  faith,  hope,  and  charity. 
The  truth  of  the  first  of  these  conclusions  and  of  these  means  is 
made  manifest  by  human  reason,  which  by  the  philosophers  has 
been  all  laid  open  to  us.  The  other  conclusions  and  means  are 
made  manifest  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  by  the  mouth  of  the 
Prophets  and  holy  writers,  and  by  Jesus  Christ,  the  co-eternal 
Son  of  God,  and  His  disciples,  has  revealed  to  us  supernatural 
truth  of  which  we  have  great  need.  Nevertheless  human  passion 
would  cast  them  all  behind  its  back,  if  it  were  not  that  men, 
going  astray  like  the  beasts  that  perish,  were  restrained  in  their 
course  by  bit  and  bridle,  like  horses  and  mules. 

Therefore  man  had  need  of  two  guides  for  his  life,  as  he  had  a 
twofold  end  in  life;  whereof  one  is  the  Supreme  Pontiff,  to  lead 
mankind  to  eternal  life,  according  to  the  things  revealed  to  us; 
and  the  other  is  the  Emperor,  to  guide  mankind  to  happiness  in 
this  world,  in  accordance  with  the  teaching  of  philosophy.  And 
since  none,  or  but  a  few  only,  and  even  they  with  sore  difficulty, 
could  arrive  at  this  harbor  of  happiness,  unless  the  waves  and 
blandishments  of  human  desires  were  set  at  rest,  and  the  human 
race  were  free  to  live  in  peace  and  quiet,  this  therefore  is  the  mark 
at  which  he  who  is  to  care  for  the  world,  and  whom  we  call  the 
Roman  Prince,  must  most  chiefly  aim  at:  I  mean,  that  in  this 


DANTE  155 

little  plot  of  earth  belonging  to  mortal  men,  life  may  pass  in  free- 
dom and  with  peace.  And  since  the  order  of  this  world  follows  the 
order  of  the  heavens,  as  they  run  their  course,  it  is  necessary,  to  the 
end  that  the  learning  which  brings  liberty  and  peace  may  be  duly 
applied  by  this  guardian  of  the  world  in  fitting  season  and  place, 
that  this  power  should  be  dispensed  by  Him  who  is  ever  present 
to  behold  the  whole  order  of  the  heavens.  And  this  is  He  who  alone 
has  preordained  this,  that  by  it  in  His  providence  He  might  bind 
all  things  together,  each  in  their  own  order. 

But  if  this  is  so,  God  alone  elects,  God  alone  confirms:  for 
there  is  none  higher  than  God.  And  hence  there  is  the  further 
conclusion,  that  neither  those  who  now  are,  nor  any  others  who 
may,  in  whatsoever  way,  have  been  called  "Electors,"  ought 
to  have  that  name;  rather  they  are  to  be  held  as  declarers  and 
announcers  of  the  providence  of  God.  And,  therefore,  it  is  that 
they  to  whom  is  granted  the  privilege  of  announcing  God's  will 
sometimes  fall  into  disagreement;  because  that,  all  of  them  or 
some  of  them  have  been  blinded  by  their  evil  desires,  and  have 
not  discerned  the  face  of  God's  appointment. 

It  is  therefore  clear  that  the  authority  of  temporal  Monarchy 
comes  down,  with  no  intermediate  will,  from  the  fountain  of 
universal  authority;  and  this  fountain,  one  in  its  unity,  flows 
through  many  channels  out  of  the  abundance  of  the  goodness  of 
God. 

And  now,  methinks,  I  have  reached  the  goal  which  I  set  before 
me.  I  have  unravelled  the  truth  of  the  question  which  I  asked: 
whether  the  office  of  Monarchy  was  necessary  to  the  welfare  of 
the  world;  whether  it  was  by  right  that  the  Roman  people  as- 
sumed to  themselves  the  office  of  Monarchy;  and,  further,  that 
last  question,  whether  the  authority  of  the  Monarch  springs 
immediately  from  God,  or  from  some  other.  Yet  the  truth  of 
this  latter  question  must  not  be  received  so  narrowly  as  to  deny 
that  in  certain  matters  the  Roman  Prince  is  subject  to  the  Roman 
Pontiff.  For  that  happiness,  which  is  subject  to  mortality,  in 
a  sense  is  ordered  with  a  view  to  the  happiness  which  shall  not 
taste  of  death.  Let,  therefore,  Caesar  be  reverent  to  Peter, 
as  the  first-born  son  should  be  reverent  to  his  father,  that  he  may 
be  illuminated  with  the  light  of  his  father's  grace,  and  so  may  be 
stronger  to  lighten  the  world  over  which  he  has  been  placed  by 
Him  alone,  who  is  the  ruler  of  all  things  spiritual  as  well  as  tem- 
poral. 


156  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

Symonds,  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Dante,  chs.  i-iii. 

Church,  Dante,  pp.  13-48. 

Kelsen,  Die  Staalslehre  des  Dante  Alighieri,  chs.  i  and  ii. 

Franck,  Reformateurs  et  publicistes  de  I'Europe,  mdyen  age,  pp.  103-108. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  Ancient  and  Mediaval,  ch.  ix,  §  4. 

Franck,  Reformateurs  et  publicistes  de  I'Europe,  mdyen  age,  pp.  108-134. 

Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  I,  pp.  433-445. 

Church,  Dante,  pp.  84-97. 

Kelsen,  Die  Staatslehre  des  Dante  Alighieri,  chs.  iii-x. 

Bryce,  Holy  Roman  Empire,  pp.  280-284. 


MARSIGLIO 


VI.    MARSIGLIO  OF  PADUA  (1270-1372) 
INTRODUCTION 

One  of  the  most  prolonged  of  the  many  contests  between 
secular  and  ecclesiastical  authorities  in  the  middle  ages  was  the 
dispute  between  Lewis  of  Bavaria  and  Pope  John  XXII,  in  the 
fourteenth  century.  This  conflict  originated  in  a  contention  for 
the  German  crown,  between  Lewis  and  a  cousin.  The  Pope, 
instigated  by  the  King  of  France,  refused  to  recognize  either  claim- 
ant and  put  forward  a  third  candidate.  There  then  reappeared 
the  controversy  over  the  Pope's  claim  of  right — through  absolving 
subjects  from  their  oaths  of  allegiance — to  withhold  sanction  to 
the  accession  of  a  secular  ruler.  As  in  other  such  controversies  a 
multitude  of  polemical  tracts  were  put  forth,  arguing  the  old 
questions  of  ultimate  supremacy  as  between  the  two  authorities, 
and  of  the  functions  and  powers  appropriate  to  either.  A  dis- 
pute within  the  church  brought  additional  support  to  Lewis; 
the  dispute  arose  from  the  decree  of  Pope  John  attacking  the 
doctrine  of  poverty  held  by  the  Franciscan  order  of  friars.  This 
action  of  the  Pope  evoked  general  antagonism  to  him  on  the  part 
of  the  Franciscans;  and  among  the  leading  defenders  of  the 
imperial  claims  in  the  contest  between  Lewis  and  the  Pope  were 
partisans  of  the  Franciscans;  the  ablest  of  these  was  the  Italian, 
Marsiglio  of  Padua. 

Marsiglio  was  a  member  of  the  secular  clergy;  he  seems  also  to 
have  followed  other  callings,  including  the  practice  of  medicine; 
and  he  was  for  a  few  months  rector  of  the  University  of  Paris. 
His  Defensor  Pads,  written  in  support  of  imperial  authority  and 
of  its  freedom  from  rightful  control  by  the  church,  has  been  called 
' 'the  greatest  and  most  original  political  treatise  of  the  middle 
ages.  "l  It  brings  forward,  early  in  the  fourteenth  century,  ideas 
which  did  not  receive  wide  expression  until  the  time  of  ecclesiastical 
reconstruction  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the  periods  of  political 
revolution  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.2 

1  Poole,  Illustrations  of  the  History  of  Mediceval  Thought,  p.  265. 

2  Cf.  Lutzow,  Life  and  Times  of  Master  John  Huss,  p.  5. 

159 


160  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Marsiglio  enunciated  far-reaching  principles  concerning  the 
popular  basis  of  government  in  state  and  in  church,  and  the  sub- 
ordination of  church  to  state.  The  end  of  political  society,  he 
held,  is  the  good  of  the  people;  the  maker  of  law  is  the  whole  body 
of  citizens,  or,  at  least,  the  "more  important  part"  of  them;  the 
administration  of  government  is  in  the  hands  of  persons  selected 
by  the  people  and  responsible  to  them,  the  sanction  of  this  re- 
sponsibility lying  in  the  right  of  the  people  to  discipline  their 
governors  for  acting  in  disobedience  to  law  or  in  excess  of  authority, 
and  to  depose  them  in  case  of  flagrant  dereliction  of  duty.  Highest 
authority  in  the  church,  he  further  maintained,  rests  in  a  general 
council  of  believers  summoned  by  the  Emperor;  the  Pope  should 
be  chosen  by  the  people,  represented  through  secular  rulers  or 
through  the  general  council;  and  the  latter  have  authority  to 
correct  or  depose  the  Pope.  Thus  "the  two  books  of  the  De- 
fensor  Pads  .  .  .  comprise  .  .  .  the  whole  essence  of  the  political 
and  religious  theory  which  separates  modern  times  from  the 
middle  ages."  l 

Marsiglio  drew  freely  from  the  ideas  of  Aristotle;  he  made  some- 
what less  use  of  scriptural  quotations  than  did  his  contemporaries. 
It  is  difficult  in  translating  to  escape  the  diffuseness  and  occasional 
obscurity  of  his  style.  However,  the  passages  given  below  will 
reveal  his  advanced  ideas  in  politics. 


READINGS  FROM  THE  DEFENSOR  PACIS" 

1.     The  Purpose  of  the  State  3 

The  state,  according  to  Aristotle,  is  a  perfect  community, 
comprising  every  element  of  sufficiency  in  itself,  and  instituted 
for  the  sake  not  merely  of  living,  but  of  living  well.  The  latter 
part  of  this  definition  indicates  the  ultimate  purpose  of  the  state; 
for  they  who  live  politically  not  only  live — beasts  and  wild  animals 
do  that;  but  they  live  well,  even  though  they  may  be  wanting  in 
the  liberalizing  products  of  civilization  and  enlightenment.  As 

1  Poole,  Illustrations  of  the  History  of  Medieval  Thought,  p.  274. 

2  The  translations  are  made  from  the  work  as  printed  in  Goldast,  Monarchia, 
Vol.  II,  pp.  154-312.     Marsiglio's  quotations  from  Aristotle  are  generally  omit- 
ted. At  a  few  points  assistance  has  been  derived  from  the  recent  abbreviated  edi- 
tion (1914)  by  Richard  Sholz,  in  the  Quellensammlung  zur  deutschen  Geschichte. 

3  Defensor  Pacis,  Bk.  I,  ch.  iv. 


MARSIGLIO  161 

the  object  of  the  state  is  that  men  may  live  and  live  well,  we  must 
first  treat  of  living,  and  of  its  modes;  for  the  state  is  necessary 
for  everything  undertaken  by  the  community  of  men  comprising 
the  state.  We  may  enunciate  the  following  first  principle  as 
a  postulate  held  naturally  by  everyone:  all  men,  if  not  bereft  of 
reason  or  otherwise  perverted,  strive  naturally  for  a  complete 
and  satisfying  life;  they  also  repel  or  shun  that  which  is  harmful, 
as  every  kind  of  animal  does. 

To  live  and  live  well — that  is,  as  is  befitting  for  man — has  been 
customarily  regarded  under  two  aspects — the  temporal  or  mun- 
dane, and  the  eternal  or  celestial.  What  eternal  life  is,  the  whole 
company  of  philosophers  have  not  been  able  to  show;  nor  is  it 
among  the  things  which  are  manifest  in  themselves ;  therefore,  the 
philosophers  have  not  concerned  themselves  with  teaching  the 
things  which  pertain  to  that  sort  of  life.  But  concerning  living 
and  living  well,  in  the  mundane  sense  of  the  good  life,  and  concern- 
ing the  things  which  are  essential  to  that  life,  renowned  philos- 
ophers have  given  an  almost  complete  demonstration.  The^ 
have  reached  the  conclusion  that  for  fulfilling  that  life  a  civil 
community  is  necessary;  for  perfect  life  cannot  be  attained  other^ 
wise.  Although  observation  and  experience  may  teach  us  this 
truth,  nevertheless  we  wish  to  point  out  more  distinctly  its  cause, 
showing  that,  since  man  is  innately  composed  of  contrary  ele- 
ments, something  of  his  substance  is  being  continually  wasted 
because  of  the  conflicting  actions  and  passions  of  these  elements. 
Moreover,  since  man  is  born  unprotected  from  his  environment, 
and  is  thus  liable  to  suffering  and  destruction,  he  needs  arts  of 
diverse  sorts  whereby  he  may  ward  off  noxious  t things.  And 
since  such  arts  cannot  be  employed  save  by  a  number  of  men, 
nor  preserved  save  through  their  communication  from  age  to 
age,  it  is  necessary  for  men  to  congregate  in  order  to  acquire 
what  is  useful  and  escape  what  is  injurious. 

Among  men  thus  congregated  contention  arises  naturally, 
which,  if  not  regulated  by  the  rule  of  justice,  leads  to  division 
and  strife,  and  finally  to  the  dissolution  of  the  community.  It  is, 
therefore,  necessary  to  introduce  into  the  community  the  rule  of 
justice  and  to  set  up  a  guardian,  or  protector.  Since  it  is  the 
function  of  the  guardian  to  restrain  dangerous  transgressors  and 
others  who  are  agitators  or  who  seek  to  harass  the  community 
from  within  or  without,  the  state  must  have  within  itself  the 
means  of  repression.  Moreover,  the  community  has  other  needs 
for  convenience  and  security — certain  things  in  time  of  peace,; 
others  in  time  of  war;  it  is,  therefore,  necessary  that  there  shall \ 


162  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

•  be  in  the  community  those  who  will  provide  these  things,  in  order 
that  the  common  demands  can  be  supplied  whenever  expedient 
,  or  imperative. 

Besides  the  things  mentioned  above,  which  administer  solely 
to  the  needs  of  this  life,  there  is  something  else  which  those  who 
live  together  civilly  need:  it  relates  to  the  affairs  of  the  future 
life  promised  to  mankind  through  supernatural  revelation  from 
God,  though  it  is  useful  also  for  the  affairs  of  the  present  life;  we 
mean  the  worship  and  honor  of  God,  and  the  giving  of  thanks 
to  Him  for  the  benefits  received  in  this  world,  as  well  as  for  those 
to  be  received  in  the  future  world.  For  instructing  and  guiding 
men  in  these  things  the  state  must  provide  teachers. 

We  may  then  summarize  what  we  have  said.  Men  are  asso- 
ciated together  for  the  sake  of  living  sufficiently — that  is,  to  obtain 
the  things  which  are  necessary  to  themselves  and  to  transmit  such 
things  from  generation  to  generation.  This  congregation  in  its 
perfected  form,  containing  the  limit  of  sufficiency  in  itself,  is 
called  the  state.  The  various  things  needed  by  those  desiring 
to  live  well  cannot  be  procured  by  men  of  a  single  rank  or  office. 
It  is  necessary  that  there  be  diverse  ranks  or  offices  among  the 
members  of  the  community,  each  rank  or  office  contributing 
something  which  man  needs  for  the  sufficiency  of  life.  These 
various  orders  or  offices  constitute  the  multiplicity  and  diversity 
of  the  parts  of  the  state. 

2.     The  Supreme  Legislative  Authority  of  the  People  l 

We  now  propose  to  point  out  the  immediate  source 2  of  law ; 
and  this  we  can  demonstrate  in  plain  terms.  Concerning  the 
ordinances  created  by  act  or  declaration  of  God  without  the  par- 
ticipation of  human  will,  and  concerning  the  institution  of  the 
Mosaic  law,  we  have  not  here  to  do— not  even  with  the  political 
precepts  which  such  laws  provide  for  the  affairs  of  this  life.  We 
are  now  concerned  solely  with  the  law  and  authority  which  proceed 
directly  from  the  arbitrament  of  the  human  mind.  Law  in  its 
secular  signification,  or,  in  other  words,  the  science  of  civil  justice 
and  expediency,  can  be  discovered  by  any  citizen;  though  such 
an  exposition  can  be  derived  more  properly  from  the  observations 
of  the  abler  and  more  sagacious  men  who  are  trained  in  the  prac- 
tice of  reason,  and  who  are  thus  called  "wise,"  than  from  the 
opinions  of  mechanics,  whose  energies  are  absorbed  in  obtaining 

1  Defensor  Pacis,  Bk.  I,  ch.  xii. 

2  Causa  effectiva. 


II 


MARSIGLIO  163 

the  necessaries  of  physical  life.  But  the  knowledge  and  true 
discovery  of  the  just  and  the  expedient,  and  of  their  opposites, 
does  not  bring  us  to  law  in  the  ultimate  and  proper  signification — 
as  a  source  of  control  for  human  civil  acts — unless  from  that 
discovery  a  precept  has  issued,  set  forth  in  the  form  of  a  command 
by  him  by  whose  authority  transgressors  can  properly  be  re- 
strained. It  is  in  order  now,  therefore,  to  determine  by  whdse 
authority  such  a  precept  is  to  be  set  forth,  and  transgressors 
restrained:  this  is  to  inquire  as  to  the  originator,  or  maker,  of 
law. 

According  to  truth  and  the  opinion  of  Aristotle,  the  legislator 
— that  is,  the  effective  and  peculiar  creator  of  law,  is  the  people, 
— or_JS^a^orit7"lrf'~them — acting  through  elecEionT"  or  more 
directly  through  vote  in  general  assembly  of  the  citizens,  command- 
ing that  something  be  done  or  omitted  in  the  field  of  human  social 
conduct,  under  pain  of  temporal  punishment.  By  majority  I 
mean  the  greater  part  of  the  community  over  whTcH^the~'iawTs1j 
to  prevail.  The  whole  body  of  citizens,  or  the  majority  of  them,  I 
either  make  law  directly^. \>r  commit  this  duty  to  some  one  or  few;  / 
the  latter  do  not,  and  cannot,  constitute  the  legislator  in  thej 
strict  sense  of  the  term ;  they  act  only  in  such  matters  and  for  sucn 
periods  as  are  covered  by  the  authorization  from  the  primary 
legislator.  Laws,  and  anything  else  established  through  election, 
require  the  approbation  of  no  other  authority,  and  need  no 
ceremonies  or  solemnities  that  are  not  demanded  by  the  electors 
or  that  are  not  necessary  to  a  valid  election.  Through  the  same 
process  should  be  undertaken  the  expansion,  elimination,  or 
modification  of  laws,  or  their  interpretation  and  suspension,  as 
such  may  be  required  for  the  common  interest  by  the  exigencies 
of  time,  place,  or  other  circumstance.  By  the  same  authority 
likewise  must  laws,  be  promulgated  or  proclaimed  after  their 
enactment,  lest  any  citizen  or  stranger,  delinquent  in  them,  should 
be  excused  through  ignorance.  Following  Aristotle,  I  call  citi- " 
zen  him  who  participates  in  the  political  community  with  either 
deliberative  or  judicial  authority,  according  to  his  station.1  By 
this  definition  boys,  slaves,  aliens,  and  women  are  distinguished, 
though  in  different  respects,  from  citizens.  For  example,  the 
sons  of  citizens  are  potential  citizens,  lacking  citizenship  solely 
^hrough  defect  of  age.  .  .  . 

Having  thus  defined  citizenship  and  determined  the  majority 
of  citizens,  we  may  return  to  the  proposed  task — namely,  to 

1  "Civem  autem  dico  eum  qui  participat  in  communitate  civili,  principatu 
autem  consiliativo  vel  judicativo  secundum  gradum  suum." 


164  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

demonstrate  that  human  legislative  authority  pertains  to  the 
whole  body,  or  the  majority,  of  citizens.  ...  It  is  not  easy, 
or  even  possible,  to  bring  all  persons  to  one  opinion;  for  the 
nature  of  some  is  depraved,  or  divergent  from  the  common  opinion 
on  account  of  malice  or  ignorance;  the  common  deliberations 
ought  not  to  be  impeded  or  omitted  because  of  the  unreasonable 
complaints  or  disputes  of  these.  Therefore,  it  is  only  to  the 
whole  body,  or  the  majority,  of  citizens  that  the  authority  of 
making  or  instituting  law  pe  tains.  I  have  proved  that  only 
out  of  the  deliberation  and  will  of  the  whole  multitude  is  the  best 
law  produced;  as  Aristotle  says:  the  best  law  is  that  which  is  created 
/  out  of  the  common  counsel  of  the  citizens,  and  right  (in  law,  that  is) 
;  is  a  matter  of  the  interest  of  the  state  and  of  the  common  well-being 
\  of  the  citizens.  .  .  .  For  a  majority  can  more  readily  than  any 
less  number  discern  the  defect  in  a  law  proposed  for  enactment; 
for  the  whole  community  is  greater  in  importance  and  worth 
than  any  part;  and  general  utility  is  more  apt  to  be  found  in 
law  issuing  from  the  community,  since  no  one  knowingly  injures 
himself.  Under  such  conditions,  moreover,  anyone  can  observe 
whether  a  proposed  law  tends  to  the  advantage  rather  of  a  certain 
one  or  few  than  of  others  or  of  the  community,  and  can  protest; 
this  is  not  possible  where  law  is  made  by  a  single  person  or  by  a 
few  who  may  seek  their  own  rather  than  the  common  good.  N\ 

Let  us  return  to  our  principal  conclusion — namely,  that  the  sple_ 
*  legislative  authority  is  that  authority  from  whom  the  best  laws 
will  proceed  and  whose  laws  will  be  most  readily  observed.  This 
is  the  whole  body  of  citizens;  it  has  the  authority  to  legislate;  a 
law  is  useless  if  it  is  not  obeyed.  The  second  proposition  may  be 
demonstrated  as  follows:  since  that  law  is  better  observed  by 
any  one  of  the  citizens,  which  he  seems  to  have  imposed  upon 
himself,  the  best  law  is  made  by  the  deliberation  and  command  of 
the  entire  body  of  citizens.  The  first  proposition  seems  almost 
axiomatic,  since  the  state  is  a  community  of  free  men;  this  cannot 
be  if  a  single  man  or  a  few  make  law  by  their  own  authority  over 
the  whole  body  of  citizens,  for  those  making  the  law  would  be 
despots  over  the  others.  In  such  case  the  remainder  of  the  citi- 
zens, perhaps  the  majority,  would  endure  such  a  law,  however 
good,  with  impatience,  or  not  at  all,  and  bearing  contempt  toward 
the  law  would  contend  that  not  having  been  invited  to  share  in 
its  creation  they  would  in  no  wise  observe  it.  On  the  other  hand, 
any  citizen  will  endure  and  obey  a  law,  however  irksome,  that  is 
made  from  the  deliberation  and  consent  of  the  whole  multitude, 
because  he  himself  seems  to  have  imposed  it  upon  himself  and, 


MARSIGLIO  165 

therefore,  cannot  complain  against  it,  but  must  suffer  its  penalties 
with  an  even  mind.  .  .  . 

Most  of  this  demonstration  falls  among  those  things  approxi- 
mately known  in  themselves,  and  among  the  permanent  truths 
which  are  set  forth  in  an  earlier  chapter.  Men  have  come  to- 
gether into  civil  association  for  the  sake  of  convenience  and  the 
resulting  sufficiency  of  life,  and  in  order  to  escape  the  opposite 
conditions.  The  things,  therefore,  which  can  effect  the  advantage 
or  disadvantage  of  all  ought  to  be  known  and  heard  by  all,  so 
that  they  may  be  able  to  seek  the  beneficial  and  repel  the  injurious. 
Thus  we  get  laws;  for  in  the  proper  adjustment  of  laws  a  great 
part  of  general  human  well-being  consists.  Under  unjust  laws 
oppression,  intolerable  servitude,  and  other  miseries  of  the  citizens 
arise,  resulting  finally  in  the  dissolution  of  the  polity.  Thejiuihof- 
ity  for  making  laws  pertains  either  to  the  whole  body  of  citizens, 
or  to  a  single  one  or  to  the  few.  It  cannot  pertain  to  one  man, 
for  he,  looking  rather  to  his  own  than  to  the  common  interest, 
can,  through  ignorance  or  malice,  produce  a  bad  law,  whence  a 
tyranny  will  arise.  For  the  same  reason  it  cannot  pertain  to 
the  few;  they  likewise  in  making  law  plan  for  a  particular  interest 
and  not  for  the  common  good ;  we  see  this  in  oligarchies.  For  the 
opposite  reasons,  lawmaking  pertains  to  the  whole  body  of  citizens 
or  to  a  majority.  For  all  citizens  must  be  duly  regulated  by  law, 
and  no  man  knowingly  does  injury  or  injustice  to  himself;  there- 
fore, all,  or  at  least  most,  desire  a  law  adapted  to  the  common  good 
of  the  citizens. 

Through  the  same  process  of  reasoning  it  can  be  shown  that  the 
ratification,  interpretation,  and  suspension  of  law  pertain  also 
to  the  sole  legislative  authority.  This  is  true  with  respect  to 
everything -established  through  election.  The  right  of  approval 
or  disapproval  must  pertain  to  those  who  have  the  authority  of 
election,  or  to  whomever  they  may  endow  with  that  function. 
The  part  would  be  greater  than,  or  at  least  equal  to,  the  whole, 
if  that  which  is  decreed  by  the  whole  community  can  be  nullified 
by  some  other  authority. 

3.     The  Distinction  Between  Legislative  and  Executive  Functions  * 

It  now  remains  to  show  the  basis  of  the  authority  to  govern. 
This  authority  comes  not  from  knowledge  of  the  laws,  from 
practical  wisdom,  or  from  moral  virtue,  although  these  are  the 
qualities  of  a  perfect  governor.  For  many  have  these  qualities 

1  Defensor  Pads,  Book  I,  ch.  xv  (in  part). 


! 


166  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

and  yet  lack  the  authority  to  rule.  .  .  .  The  effective  power  in 
the  institution  of  a  governing  body,  that  is,  in  election,  pertains 
to  the  legislator — that  is,  to  the  citizens  as  a  body.  The  latter 
likewise  have  the  power  of  correcting  the  government,  and  even 
the  power  of  deposition,  should  such  become  expedient  for  the 
common  interest.  For  the  majority  rules.  The  manner  of 
coming  to  agreement  "in  election  or  appointment  may  vary  in 
different  countries.  But  whatever  these  differences  may  be,  the 
election  or  appointment  must  always  take  place  by  the  authority 
of  the  law-making  power,  which  is,  as  we  have  often  said,  the  whole 
citizen-body,  or  its  larger  part.  Now  this  proposition  can  be 
maintained  by  the  same  proofs  by  which  we  concluded  that  the 
power  to  make  laws,  and  to  change  them,  belonged  to  the  entire 
community.  We  change  only  the  lesser  term  of  the  conclusion, 
substituting  the  word  "government"  for  the  word  "law." 

This  proposition  can  be  tested  by  its  own  truth.  For  whoever 
has  the  power  to  create  a  form  has  the  power  to  determine  its 
underlying  substance,  as  may  be  seen  in  all  the  productive  acts. 
...  In  all  things,  both  artificial  and  natural,  this  is  apparent  by 
induction.  There  is  a  reason  for  this;  for  the  forms  and  their 
operation  are  the  ends,  the  materials  are  the  means.  Since  then 
it  belongs  to  the  whole  body  of  citizens  to  create  the  form  accord- 
ing to  which  civil  acts  are  to  be  regulated — that  is,  the  law,  it 
belongs  to  the  same  body  to  determine  the  material  or  subject- 
matter  of  this  form.  .  .  .  From  this  it  seems  possible  to  infer 
consistently  that  a  ruler  who  is  elected  without  succession  is 
greatly  to  be  preferred  to  rulers  who  are  hereditary.  .  .  . 

Thus  one  part  of  the  state  institutes  and  determines  the  other 
parts  or  offices  of  the  state.  The  former  we  call  the  legislative, 
the  latter  we  call  the  instrumental  or  executive  part;  the  executive 
rules  by  virtue  of  the  authority  conferred  upon  it*  by  the  legis- 
lative and  according  to  the  form  given  to  it  by  the  same  power- 
that  is,  according  to  law,  in  conformity  to  which  it  must  always, 
as  far  as  possible,  perform  and  regulate  civil  acts.  For  though 
the  legislative,  as  the  first  and  proper  source  of  authority,  must 
determine  who  are  to  fulfill  the  various  functions  of  the  state, 
nevertheless,  the  executive  (pars  principans)  directs,  and,  under 
proper  conditions,  stays  the  execution  of  these  functions,  as  also  of 
laws  in  general.  For  the  execution  of  laws  is  more  conveniently 
accomplished  through  such  a  body  than  through  the  entire  multi- 
tude of  citizens,  since  for  this  work  one  ruler  or  a  few  will  suffice. 
In  such  duties  the  whole  community  would  be  vainly  engaged  and 
would  be  diverted  from  other  necessary  activities.  The  whole 


MARSIGLIO  167 


community  is  acting  when  the  executive  acts,  since  the  latter  acts 
according  to  the  decision  of  the  community — that  is,  according 
to  law,  which  is  more  easily  executed  by  a  few  or  even  one. 


SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  Ancient  and  Medi&val,  ch.  ix,  §  5. 

Riezler,  Die  lilerarischen  Widersacher  der  Pdpste  zur  Zeit  Ludwig  des  Baiers, 

pp.  30-41. 
Valois,  "Jean  de  Jandun  et  Marsile  de  Padoue,"  in  Histoire  litter  air  e  de  la 

France,  Vol.  XXIII,  pp.  560-567. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  Ancient  and  Medi&val,  ch.  ix,  §§6  and  8. 

Poole,  Illustrations  of  Mediceval  Thought,  pp.  263-277. 

Sullivan,  "Marsiglio  of  Padua  and  William  of  Ockam,"  in  American  His- 
torical Review,  Vol.  II  (1896-7),  pp.  409-426,  593-610. 

Riezler,  Die  literarischen  Widersacher  der  Pdpste  zur  Zeit  Ludwig  des  Baiers, 
pp.  193-240. 

Franck,  Reformateurs  et  publicistes  de  VEurope,  moyen  age,  pp.  135-151. 

Guggenheim,  "Marsilius  von  Padua  und  die  Staatsidee  des  Aristotles,"  in 
Historische  Vierteljahresschrift,  yol.  VII  (1904),  pp.  343-362. 

Valois,  "Jean  de  Jandun  et  Marsile  de  Padoue,"  in  Histoire  litter  air  e  de  la 
France,  Vol.  XXIII,  pp.  574-587. 

Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  I,  pp.  457-461. 


MACHIAVELLI 


VII.     MACfflAVELLI  (1469-152?) 
INTRODUCTION 

In  the  Defensor  Pads  we  found  ideas  on  popular  government 
which  seemed  notably  in  advance  of  the  age  in  which  they  were 
enunciated.  But  Marsiglio's  manner,  of  discourse  was  essentially 
mediaeval;  his  argumentation  was  deductive  and  abstract;  and 
though  his  scriptural  citations  were  less  numerous  than  was  cus- 
tomary among  mediaeval  writers,  he  resorted  freely  to  Aristotle 
for  statement  of  first  principles  and  for  confirmation  of  his  con- 
clusions. It  is  two  centuries  later  before  we  find  the  first  important 
political  book  which  is  generally  regarded  as  distinctively  modern 
in  method  and  point  of  view;  this  book  is  The  Prince  of  Machia- 
velli.  This  celebrated  work  is  called  modern  because,  in  the 
first  place,  its  conclusions  are  sustained  by  observations  from 
history  and  contemporary  politics  rather  by  citation  of  authority 
or  by  derivation  from  theological  dogma  and  philosophical  tra- 
dition; in  the  second  place,  in  contrast  to  mediaeval  methods, 
political  questions  are  examined  in  thorough  isolation  from  reli- 
gious, metaphysical,  and  ethical  principles.  The  Prince  treats 
of  the  means  whereby  a  strong  and  adroit  man  may  most  success- 
fully acquire,  increase,  and  perpetuate  political  dominion.  Ques- 
tions of  right  and  wrong,  and  considerations  of  public  welfare  and 
of  conformity  to  religious  practices,  are  introduced  only  with 
regard  to  their  bearing  upon  the  skilfulness  of  the  autocrat.  The 
completeness  with  which  this  detachment  of  method  is  pursued 
in  The  Prince,  and  the  particular  type  of  conclusions  of  state- 
craft reached,  seem  properly  to  be  assigned  to  no  special  epoch  or 
school.  They  seem  rather  the  peculiar  product,  on  the  one  hand, 
of  the  temperament  of  the  author,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  of 
the  character  of  the  political  events  through  which  he  lived. 

Machiavelli  was  born  in  Florence.  He  was  in  the  public  service 
of  that  city-state  from  the  year  1494  (the  year  of  the  invasion  of 
Charles  VIII,  the  first  expulsion  of  the  Medici,  and  the  temporary 
restoration  of  the  Republic)  until  the  return  of  the  Medici  in 

171 


172  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

1512.  Following  this  he  was  in  exile  for  nine  years  .  It  was  during 
his  banishment  that  he  wrote  The  Prince,  the  Discourses  on  the 
First  Ten  Books  of  Livy,  and  several  historical  and  dramatic 
works.  Through  the  greater  part  of  his  active  political  life 
he  headed  the  highest  diplomatic  office  of  the  Republic.  He  was 
sent  on  numerous  missions  to  petty  principalities  and  cities  of 
Italy,  and  on  several  important  embassies;  thus  he  visited  the 
courts  of  Louis  XII  of  France,  Emperor  Maximilian  and  others. 
These  missions  afforded  him  opportunity  for  observing  govern- 
mental practices  under  diverse  conditions.  Of  peculiar  signifi- 
cance in  this  regard  was  his  mission  to  the  camp  of  Caesar  Borgia 
at  the  point  of  time  when  that  skilful  and  infamous  tyrant  had 
attained  his  summit  of  success.  The  career  of  single-minded 
cruelty  and  fraud  which  Caesar  Borgia  had  followed  furnished 
Machiavelli  with  many  suggestions  in  practical  politics.  But 
Machiavelli's  experience  and  observation  had  provided  him  a 
broader  field  for  examination  of  the  efficacy  of  despotism.  The 
principle  of  direct  autocracy  was  dominant  in  the  governments 
of  the  great  states  of  Europe,  and  in  that  of  the  church.  Further- 
more, recent  events  in  Machiavelli's  own  city,  and  the  general 
political  condition  of  Italy,  indicated  to  him  the  need  for  an  analy- 
sis of  the  qualities  of  a  successful  monarch.  From  the  instability 
which  was  chronic  within  each  of  the  small  Italian  states,  and  from 
the  turmoil  of  continually  conflicting  claims  of  territorial  juris- 
diction, escape  appeared  to  be  possible  only  through  the  agency  of 
a  single  powerful  and  unscrupulous  despot. 

The  Prince  was  completed  in  1513.  Machiavelli  planned  to 
dedicate  the  work  to  one  of  the  Medici,  hoping  thereby  to  obtain 
recall  from  exile  and  restoration  to  public  office  and  favor,  and 
also  to  bring  his  manual  into  the  attention  of  one  who,  by  fol- 
lowing its  doctrines,  might  accomplish  the  unification  of  Italy. 
He  finally  dedicated  The  Prince  to  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,1  who 
became  de  facto  head  of  the  Florentine  government  in  1516. 
Machiavelli  was  subsequently  recalled  from  exile  and  was  em- 
ployed in  the  capacity  of  adviser  and  diplomatic  representative 
of  the  Medici  rulers  in  Florence  and  Rome. 


/-4-        *     (  v^      u*c«    fy\         *w  Asu[ 

1  Grandson  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent. 


MACHIAVELLI  173 


READINGS  FROM  THE  PRINCE1 

The  Conduct  of  a  Successful  Ruler  * 

Ch.  xv.  Of  Such  Things  as  Render  Men  (especially  Princes) 
Worthy  of  Blame  or  Applause. 

It  remains  now  that  we  see  in  what  manner  a  prince  ought 
to  comport  with  his  subjects  and  friends;  and  because  many  have 
written  of  this  subject  before,  it  may  perhaps  seem  arrogant  in 
me,  especially  considering  that  in  my  discourse  I  shall  deviate 
from  the  opinion  of  other  men.  But  my  intention  being  to  write 
for  the  benefit  and  advantage  of  him  who  understands,  I  thought 
it  more  convenient  to  respect  the  essential  verity,  rather  than  an 
imaginary  view,  of  the  subject;  for  many  have  framed  imaginary 
commonwealths  and  governments  to  themselves  which  never  were 
seen  nor  had  any  real  existence.  And  the  present  manner  of  living 
is  so  different  from  the  way  that  ought  to  be  taken,  that  he  who 
neglects  what  is  done  to  follow  what  ought  to  be  done,  will  sooner 
learn  how  to  ruin  than  how  to  preserve  himself;  for  a  tender  man, 
and  one  that  desires  to  be  honest  in  everything,  must  needs  run 
a  great  hazard  among  so  many  of  a  contrary  principle.  Where- 
fore it  is  necessary  for  a  prince  who  is  willing  to  subsist  to  harden 
himself,  and  learn  to  be  good  or 'Otherwise  according  to  the  exigence 
of  his  affairs.  Laying  aside,  therefore,  all  imaginary  notions  of 
a  prince,  and  discoursing  of  nothing  but  what  is  actually  true, 
I  say  that  all  men  when  they  are  spoken  of,  and  especially  princes, 
who  are  in  a  higher  and  more  eminent  station,  are  remarkable 
for  some  quality  or  other  that  makes  them  either  honorable  or 
contemptible.  Hence  it  is  that  some  are  counted  liberal,  others 
miserly;  .  .  .  some  munificent,  others  rapacious;  some  cruel, 
others  merciful;  some  faithless,  others  precise;  one  poor-spirited 
and  effeminate,  another  fierce  and  ambitious;  one  courteous, 
another  haughty;  one  modest,  another  libidinous;  one  sincere, 
another  cunning;  one  rugged  and  morose,  another  accessible 
and  easy;  one  grave,  another  giddy;  one  devout,  another  an 
atheist. 

No  man,  I  am  sure,  will  deny  but  that  it  would  be  an  admirable 
thing  and  highly  to  be  commended  to  have  a  prince  endued  with 
all  the  good  qualities  aforesaid;  but  because  it  is  impossible  to 

1  The  selections  are  from  Henry  Morley's  edition  of  The  Prince  and  Other 
Pieces,  but  many  changes,  in  wording  and  construction,  have  been  made. 
2Chs.  xv-xix,  xxi.    Part  of  ch.  xix  is  omitted. 


174  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

have,  much  less  to  exercise,  them  all  by  reason  of  the  frailty  and 
grossness  of  our  nature,  it  is  convenient  that  he  be  so  well  in- 
structed as  to  know  how  to  avoid  the  scandal  of  those  vices  which 
may  deprive  him  of  his  state,  and  be  very  cautious  of  the  rest, 
though  their  consequence  be  not  so  pernicious  but  that  where  they 
are  unavoidable  he  need  trouble  himself  the  less.  Again,  he  is 
not  to  concern  himself  if  he  incur  the  infamy  of  those  vices 
without  which  his  dominion  is  not  to  be  preserved;  for  if  we 
consider  things  impartially  we  shall  find  some  things  are  virtuous 
in  appearance,  and  yet,  if  pursued,  would  bring  certain  destruction; 
while  others,  seemingly  bad,  yet,  if  followed  by  a  prince,  procure 
his  peace  and  security. 

Ch.  xvi.     Of  Liberality  and  Parsimony. 

To  begin,  then,  with  the  first  of  the  above-mentioned  qualities, 
I  say,  it  would  be  advantageous  to  be  accounted  liberal;  never- 
theless, liberality  so  used  as  not  to  render  you  formidable  does 
but  injure  you;  for  if  it  be  used  virtuously  as  it  ought  to  be  it 
will  not  be  known,  nor  secure  you  from  the  imputation  of  its  con- 
trary. To  keep  up,  therefore,  the  name  of  liberal  amongst  men, 
it  is  necessary  that  no  kind  of  luxury  be  omitted,  so  that  a 
prince  of  that  disposition  will  consume  his  revenue  in  that  kind 
of  expenses,  and  be  obliged  at  last,  if  he  would  preserve  that 
reputation,  to  become  grievous,  and  a  great  exactor  upon  the 
people,  and  do  whatever  is  practicable  for  the  getting  of  money, 
which  will  cause  him  to  be  hated  of  his  subjects  and  despised  by 
everybody  else  when  he  once  comes  to  be  poor,  so  that  offending 
many  with  his  liberality  and  rewarding  but  few,  he  becomes 
sensible  of  the  first  disaster,  and  runs  great  hazard  of  being  ruined 
the  first  time  he  is  in  danger;  which,  when  afterward  he  discovers, 
and  desires  to  remedy,  he  runs  into  the  other  extreme,  and  grows 
as  odious  for  his  avarice.  So,  then,  if  a  prince  cannot  exercise 
this  virtue  of  liberality  so  as  to  be  publicly  known,  without 
detriment  to  himself,  he  ought,  if  he  be  wise,  not  to  dread  the 
imputation  of  being  covetous,  for  in  time  he  shall  be  esteemed 
liberal  when  it  is  discovered  that  by  his  parsimony  he  has  in- 
creased his  revenue  to  a  condition  of  defending  himself  against 
invasion  and  of  engaging  in  enterprises  upon  other  people  without 
oppressing  his  subjects;  so  that  he  shall  be  accounted  noble  to  alt 
from  whom  he  takes  nothing  away,  which  are  an  infinite  number, 
and  near  and  parsimonious  only  to  such  few  as  he  gives  nothing  to. 

In  our  days  we  have  seen  no  great  action  done  but  by  those 
who  were  accounted  miserly;  others  have  failed  always.  Pope 


MACHIAVELLI  175 

Julius  II  made  use  of  his  bounty  to  get  into  the  Chair,  but  to 
enable  himself  to  make  war  with  the  King  of  France  he  never 
practised  it  afterwards,  and  by  his  frugality  he  maintained 
several  wars  without  any  tax  or  imposition  upon  the  people,  his 
long  parsimony  having  furnished  him  for  his  extraordinary 
expenses.  The  present  King  of  Spain,  if  he  had  affected  to  be 
thought  liberal,  could  never  have  undertaken  so  many  great 
designs  nor  obtained  so  many  great  victories.  A  prince,  there- 
fore, ought  not  to  be  much  concerned  over  being  accounted 
covetous — so  long  as  he  is  enabled  thereby  to  forbear  from 
burdening  his  subjects,  to  defend  himself,  and  to  keep  himself 
from  becoming  poor  and  despicable;  covetousness  is  one  of  those 
vices  which  fortify  his  dominion.  If  any  one  objects  that  Caesar  by 
his  liberality  made  his  way  to  the  empire,  and  many  others  upon 
the  same  score  of  reputation  have  made  themselves  great,  I  answer: 
" Either  you  are  actually  a  prince,  or  you  are  in  a  fair  way  to  be 
made  one.  In  the  first  case,  liberality  is  hurtful;  in  the  second,  it 
is  necessary;  Caesar  aspired  to  the  sovereignty  of  Rome;  when  he 
was  arrived  at  that  dignity,  if  he  had  lived,  and  had  not  retrenched 
his  expenses,  he  would  have  ruined  that  empire."  If  any  one 
replies  that  many  have  been  princes,  and  with  their  armies  per- 
formed great  matters,  who  have  been  reputed  liberal,  I  rejoin 
that  a  prince  spends  either  of  his  own,  or  his  subjects',  or  other 
people's.  In  the  first  case  he  is  to  be  frugal;  in  the  second,  he 
may  be  as  profuse  as  he  pleases,  and  baulk  no  point  of  liberality. 
But  that  prince  whose  army  is  to  be  maintained  with  free  quarter 
and  plunder  and  exactions  from  other  people,  is  obliged  to  be 
liberal,  or  his  army  will  desert  him;  and  well  he  may  be  prodigal 
of  what  neither  belongs  to  him  nor  his  subjects,  as  was  the  case 
with  Caesar,  and  Cyrus,  and  Alexander;  for  to  spend  upon  another's 
stock  rather  adds  to  than  subtracts  from  his  reputation;  it  is 
spending  of  his  own  that  is  so  mortal  and  pernicious.  Nor  is 
there  anything  that  destroys  itself  like  liberality;  for  in  practising 
it  you  lose  the  means  whereby  it  can  be  practised,  and  you  become 
poor  and  contemptible,  or,  to  avoid  that  poverty,  you  make  your- 
self odious  and  a  tyrant;  and  there  is  nothing  of  so  much  impor- 
tance to  a  prince  to  avoid  as  to  be  either  contemptible  or  odious, 
both  of  which  depend  much  upon  the  prudent  exercise  of  your 
liberality.  Upon  these  considerations  it  is  more  wisdom  to  lie 
under  the  scandal  of  being  miserly,  which  is  an  imputation 
rather  infamous  than  odious,  than  to  be  thought  liberal  and  run 
yourself  into  a  necessity  of  playing  the  tyrant,  which  is  infamous 
and  odious  both. 


176  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Ch.  xvii.  Of  Cruelty  and  Clemency,  and  Whether  it  is  Best  for 
a  Prince  to  be  Beloved  or  Feared. 

To  come  now  to  the  other  qualities  proposed,  I  say  every  prince 
is  to  desire  to  be  esteemed  rather  merciful  than  cruel,  but  with 
great  caution  that  his  mercy  be  not  abused;  Caesar  Borgia  was 
counted  cruel,  yet  that  cruelty  reduced  Romagna,  united  it, 
settled  it  in  peace,  and  rendered  it  faithful:  so  that  if  well  con- 
sidered, he  will  appear  much  more  merciful  than  the  Florentines, 
who  rather  than  be  thought  cruel  suffered  Pistoia  to  be  destroyed. 
A  prince,  therefore,  is  not  to  regard  the  reproach  of  being  cruel, 
if  thereby  he  keeps  his  subjects  in  their  allegiance  and  united, 
seeing  that  by  some  few  examples  of  justice  he  may  be  more  merci- 
ful than  they  who  by  a  universal  exercise  of  pity  permit  several 
disorders  to  follow,  which  occasion  rapine  and  murder;  and  the 
reason  is,  because  that  exorbitant  mercy  has  an  ill  effect  upon 
the  whole  community,  whereas  particular  executions  extend 
only  to  particular  persons.  But  among  all  princes  a  new  prince 
has  the  hardest  task  to  avoid  the  scandal  of  being  cruel  by  reason 
of  the  newness  of  his  government,  and  the  dangers  which  attend 
it:  hence  Virgil  in  the  person  of  Dido  excused  the  inhospitality 
of  her  government. 

Res  dura,  et  regni  novitas,  me  talia  cogunt 
Moliri,  et  late  fines  Custode  tueri. 

My  new  dominion  and  my  harder  fate 
Constrains  me  to't,  and  I  must  guard  my  state. 

Nevertheless,  he  is  not  to  be  too  credulous  of  reports,  too  hasty 
in  his  motions,  nor  create  fears  and  jealousies  to  himself,  but 
so  to  temper  his  administrations  with  prudence  and  humanity 
that  neither  too  much  confidence  may  make  him  careless,  nor 
too  much  diffidence  intolerable.  And  hence  arises  a  new 
question,  Whether  it  be  better  to  be  beloved  than  feared,  or 
feared  than  beloved?  It  is  answered,  both  would  be  convenient, 
but  because  that  is  hard  to  attain,  it  is  better  and  more  secure, 
if  one  must  be  wanting,  to  be  feared  than  beloved;  for  in  general 
men  are  ungrateful,  inconstant,  hypocritical,  fearful  of  danger, 
and  covetous  of  gain;  while  they  receive  any  benefit  by  you, 
and  the  danger  is  at  a  distance,  they  are  absolutely  yours,  and 
their  blood,  their  estates,  their  lives  and  their  children,  as  I  said 
before,  are  all  at  your  service;  but  when  mischief  is  at  hand,  and 
you  have  present  need  of  their  help,  they  make  no  scruple  to  re- 
volt; and  that  prince  who  leaves  himself  naked  of  other  prepara- 
tions, and  relies  wholly  upon  their  professions,  is  sure  to  be  ruined; 


MACHIAVELLI  177 

for  amity  contracted  by  price,  and  not  by  the  greatness  and  gen- 
erosity of  the  mind,  may  seem  a  good  pennyworth;  yet  when  you 
have  occasion  to  make  use  of  it,  you  will  find  no  such  thing. 
Moreover,  men  do  with  less  remorse  offend  against  those  who 
desire  to  be  beloved  than  against  those  who  are  ambitious  of  being 
feared;  the  reason  is  that  love  is  fastened  only  by  a  liga- 
ment of  obligation,  which  the  ill-nature  of  man  breaks  upon 
every  occasion  that  is  presented  to  his  profit;  but  fear  depends 
upon  an  apprehension  of  punishment,  which  is  never  to  be  dis- 
pelled. Yet  a  prince  is  to  render  himself  awful  in  such  sort  that, 
if  he  gains  not  his  subjects'  love,  he  may  escape  their  hatred; 
for  to  be  feared  and  not  hated  are  compatible  enough,  and  he  may 
be  always  in  that  condition  if  he  offers  no  violence  to  their  estates, 
nor  attempts  anything  upon  the  honor  of  their  wives,  and  when 
he  has  occasion  to  take  away  any  man's  life,  if  he  takes  his 
time  when  the  cause  is  manifest,  and  he  has  good  matter  for  his 
justification;  but  above  all  things  he  is  to  have  a  care  of  intrenching 
upon  their  estates,  for  men  do  sooner  forget  the  death  of  their 
father  than  the  loss  of  their  patrimony;  besides,  occasions  of 
confiscation  never  fail,  and  he  that  once  gives  way  to  that  humor 
of  rapine  shall  never  want  temptation  to  ruin  his  neighbor. 
But,  on  the  contrary,  provocations  to  blood  are  more  rare,  and 
do  sooner  evaporate;  but  when  a  prince  is  at  the  head  of  his  army, 
and  has  a  multitude  of  soldiers  to  govern,  then  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  not  to  value  the  epithet  of  cruel,  for  without  that  no 
army  can  be  kept  in  unity,  nor  in  disposition  for  any  great  act. 

Among  the  several  instances  of  Hannibal's  great  conduct, 
it  is  one  that,  having  a  vast  army  constituted  out  of  several  nations, 
and  conducted  to  make  war  in  an  enemy's  country,  there  never 
happened  any  sedition  among  them,  or  any  mutiny  against  their 
general,  either  in  his  adversity  or  prosperity.  This  can  only 
be  attributed  to  his  great  cruelty,  which,  added  to  his  infinite 
virtues,  rendered  him  both  awful  and  terrible  to  his  soldiers; 
without  that  all  his  virtues  would  have  signified  nothing. 
Some  writers  there  are,  but  of  little  consideration,  who  admire 
his  great  exploits  and  condemn  the  true  causes  of  them.  But 
to  prove  that  his  other  virtues  would  never  have  carried  him 
through,  let  us  reflect  upon  Scipio,  a  person  honorable  not  only 
in  his  own  time,  but  in  all  history  whatever;  nevertheless  his  army 
mutinied  in  Spain,  and  the  true  cause  of  it  was  his  too  much 
gentleness  and  lenity,  which  gave  his  soldiers  more  liberty  than 
was  suitable  or  consistent  with  military  discipline.  Fabius  Maxi- 
mus  upbraided  him  for  it  in  the  senate,  and  called  him  corrupter 


178  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  Roman  Militia;  the  inhabitants  of  Locris  having  been  plun- 
dered and  destroyed  by  one  of  Scipio's  lieutenants,  they  were 
never  redressed,  nor  the  legate's  insolence  corrected,  all  proceeding 
from  the  mildness  of  Scipio's  nature,  which  was  so  eminent  in 
him,  that  a  person  undertaking  to  excuse  him  in  the  senate 
declared  that  there  were  many  who  knew  better  how  to  avoid 
doing  ill  themselves  than  to  punish  it  in  other  people;  whioh 
temper  would  doubtless  in  time  have  eclipsed  the  glory  and  repu- 
tation of  Scipio,  had  that  authority  been  continued  in  him; 
but  receiving  orders  and  living  under  the  direction  of  the  senate, 
that  ill  quality  was  not  only  not  discovered  in  him,  but  turned 
to  his  renown.  I  conclude,  therefore,  according  to  what  I  have 
said  about  being  feared  or  beloved,  that  forasmuch  as  men  do 
love  at  their  own  discretion,  but  fear  at  their  prince's,  a  wise 
prince  is  obliged  to  lay  his  foundation  upon  that  which  is  in  his 
own  power,  not  that  which  depends  on  other  people,  but,  as  I 
said  before,  with  great  caution  that  he  does  not  make  himself 
odious. 

Ch.  xviii.     How  far  a  Prince  is  Obliged  by  his  Promise. 

How  honorable  it  is  for  a  prince  to  keep  his  word,  and  act 
rather  with  integrity  than  collusion,  I  suppose  everybody  under- 
stands: nevertheless,  experience  has  shown  in  our  times  that 
those  princes  who  have  not  pinned  themselves  up  to  that 
punctuality  and  preciseness  have  done  great  things,  and  by 
their  cunning  and  subtilty  have  not  only  circumvented  those 
with  whom  they  had  to  deal,  but  have  overcome  and  been  too 
hard  for  those  who  have  been  so  superstitiously  exact.  For 
further  explanation  you  must  understand  there  are  two  ways  of 
contending — by  law  and  by  force:  the  first  is  proper  to  men;  the 
second  to  beasts;  but  because  many  times  the  first  is  insufficient, 
recourse  must  be  had  to  the  second.  It  belongs,  therefore,  to  a 
prince  to  understand  both — when  to  make  use  of  the  rational 
and  when  of  the  brutal  way ;  and  this  is  recommended  to  princes, 
though  abstrusely,  by  ancient  writers,  who  tell  them  how  Achilles 
and  several  other  princes  were  committed  for  education  to 
Chiron  the  Centaur,  who  was  half  man  and  half  beast — thus 
showing  how  necessary  it  is  for  a  prince  to  be  acquainted 
with  both  natures,  for  one  without  the  other  will  be  of  little 
duration.  Seeing,  therefore,  it  is  of  such  importance  to  a  prince 
to  take  upon  him  the  nature  and  disposition  of  a  beast,  of  all  the 
whole  flock  he  ought  to  imitate  the  lion  and  the  fox;  for  the  lion 
is  in  danger  of  toils  and  snares,  and  the  fox  of  the  wolf;  so  that  he 


MACHIAVELLI  179 

must  be  a  fox  to  find  out  the  snares,  and  a  lion  to  fight  away  the 
wolves,  but  they  who  keep  wholly  to  the  lion  have  no  true  notion 
of  themselves.  A  prince,  therefore,  who  is  wise  and  prudent, 
cannot  or  ought  not  to  keep  his  word,  when  the  keeping  of  it 
is  to  his  prejudice,  and  the  causes  for  which  he  promised  removed. 
Were  men  all  good  this  doctrine  would  not  be  taught,  but  because 
they  are  wicked  and  not  likely  to  be  punctual  with  you,  you  are 
not  obliged  to  any  such  strictness  with  them;  nor  was  there  ever 
any  prince  that  lacked  lawful  pretence  to  justify  his  breach  of 
promise.  I  might  give  many  modern  examples,  and  show 
how  many  confederations,  and  peaces,  and  promises  have  been 
broken  by  the  infidelity  of  princes,  and  how  he  that  best  personated 
the  fox  had  the  better  success.  Nevertheless,  it  is  of  great 
consequence  to  disguise  your  inclination,  and  to  play  the  hypo- 
crite well ;  and  men  are  so  simple  in  their  temper  and  so  submissive 
to  their  present  necessities  that  he  that  is  neat  and  cleanly  in 
his  collusions  shall  never  want  people  to  practise  them  upon. 
I  cannot  forbear  one  example  which  is  still  fresh  in  our  memory. 
Alexander  VI  never  did,  nor  thought  of,  anything  but  cheating, 
and  never  wanted  matter  to  work  upon;  and  though  no  man 
promised  a  thing  with  greater  asseveration,  nor  confirmed  it  with 
more  oaths  and  imprecations,  and  observed  them  less,  yet  under- 
standing the  world  well  he  never  miscarried. 

A  prince,  therefore,  is  not  obliged  to  have  all  the  forementioned 
good  qualities  in  reality,  but  it  is  necessary  he  have  them  in  ap- 
pearance; nay,  I  will  be  bold  to  affirm  that,  having  them  actually, 
and  employing  them  upon  all  occasions,  they  are  extremely 
prejudicial,  whereas,  having  them  only  in  appearance,  they  turn 
to  better  account;  it  is  honorable  to  seem  mild,  and  merciful, 
and  courteous,  and  religious,  and  sincere,  and  indeed  to  be  so, 
provided  your  mind  be  so  rectified  and  prepared  that  you  can 
act  quite  contrary  upon  occasion.  And  this  must  be  premised, 
that  a  prince,  especially  if  come  but  lately  to  the  throne,  cannot 
observe  all  those  things  exactly  which  cause  men  to  be  esteemed 
virtuous,  being  oftentimes  necessitated,  for  the  preservation  of 
his  state,  to  do  things  inhuman,  uncharitable,  and  irreligious;  and, 
therefore,  it  is  convenient  for  his  mind  to  be  at  his  command,  and 
flexible  to  all  the  puffs  and  variations  of  fortune;  not  forbearing 
to  be  good  while  it  is  in  his  choice,  but  knowing  how  to  be  evil 
when  there  is  a  necessity.  A  prince,  then,  is  to  have  particular 
care  that  nothing  falls  from  his  mouth  but  what  is  full  of  the  five 
qualities  aforesaid,  and  that  to  see  and  hear  him  he  appears 
all  goodness,  integrity,  humanity,  and  religion,  which  last  he 


180  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

ought  to  pretend  to  more  than  ordinarily,  because  more  men  do 
judge  by  the  eye  than  by  the  touch;  for  everybody  sees  but  few 
understand;  everybody  sees  how  you  appear,  but  few  know  what 
in  reality  you  are,  and  those  few  dare  not  oppose  the  opinion  of 
the  multitude,  who  have  the  majesty  of  their  prince  to  defend 
them;  and  in  the  actions  of  all  men,  especially  princes,  where  no 
man  has  power  to  judge,  everyone  looks  to  the  end.  Let  a  prince, 
therefore,  do  what  he  can  to  preserve  his  life,  and  continue  his 
supremacy,  the  means  which  he  uses  shall  be  thought  honorable, 
and  be  commended  by  everybody;  because  the  people  are  always 
taken  with  the  appearance  and  event  of  things,  and  the  greatest 
part  of  the  world  consists  of  the  people;  those  few  who  are  wise 
taking  place  when  the  multitude  has  nothing  else  to  rely  upon. 
There  is  a  prince  at  this  time  in  being  (but  his  name  I  shall  con- 
ceal) who  has  nothing  in  his  mouth  but  fidelity  and  peace;  and 
yet  had  he  exercised  either  the  one  or  the  other,  they  had  robbed 
him  before  this  both  of  his  power  and  reputation. 

Ch.  xix.  That  Princes  Ought  to  be  Cautious  of  Becoming  either 
Odious  or  Contemptible. 

Since  in  our  discourse  of  the  qualifications  of  a  prince  we  have 
hitherto  spoken  only  of  those  which  are  of  greatest  importance, 
we  shall  now  speak  briefly  of  the  rest,  with  the  general  statements 
that  a  prince  should  make  it  his  business  (as  is  partly  hinted 
before)  to  avoid  such  things  as  may  make  him  odious  or  contemp- 
tible, and  that  as  often  as  he  does  that  he  plays  his  part  very  well, 
and  shall  meet  no  danger  or  inconveniences  by  the  rest  of  his  vices. 
Nothing,  as  I  said  before,  makes  a  prince  so  insufferably  odious 
as  usurping  his  subjects'  estates  and  debauching  their  wives, 
which  are  two  things  he  ought  studiously  to  forbear;  for  while 
the  generality  of  the  world  live  quietly  upon  their  estates  and  un- 
prejudiced in  their  honor,  they  live  peaceably  enough,  and  all 
his  contention  is  only  with  the  pride  and  ambition  of  some  few 
persons  who  can  in  many  ways  and  with  great  ease  be  restrained. 

But  a  prince  is  contemptible  when  he  is  counted  effeminate,  light, 
inconstant,  pusillanimous,  and  irresolute;  and  of  this  he  ought  to  be 
as  careful  as  of  a  rock  in  the  sea;  and  he  should  strive  that  in  all  his 
actions  there  may  appear  magnanimity,  courage,  gravity,  and  forti- 
tude, desiring  that  in  the  private  affairs  of  his  subjects  his  sentence 
and  determination  may  be  irrevocable,  and  that  he  himself  may 
stand  so  in  their  opinion  that  none  may  think  it  possible  either  to  de- 
lude or  divert  him.  The  prince  who  causes  himself  to  be  esteemed 
in  that  manner  shall  be  highly  feared,  and  if  he  be  feared, 


MACHIAVELLI  181 

people  will  not  easily  conspire  against  him,  nor  readily  invade 
him,  because  he  is  known  to  be  an  excellent  person  and  formidable 
to  his  subjects;  for  a  prince  ought  to  be  terrible  in  two  places — 
at  home  to  his  subjects,  and  abroad  to  his  equals,  from  whom  he 
defends  himself  by  good  arms  and  good  allies;  for,  if  his  power  be 
good,  his  friends  will  not  be  wanting,  and  while  his  affairs  are  fixed 
at  home,  there  will  be  no  danger  from  abroad,  unless  they  be 
disturbed  by  some  former  conspiracy;  and  upon  any  commotion 
ab  extra,  if  he  be  composed  at  home,  has  lived  as  I  prescribe,  and 
not  deserted  himself,  he  will  be  able  to  bear  up  against  any  at- 
tack, according  to  the  example  of  Nabis  the  Spartan. 

When  things  are  well  abroad  his  affairs  at  home  will  be  safe 
enough,  unless  they  be  perplexed  by  some  secret  conspiracy,  against 
which  the  prince  sufficiently  provides  if  he  keeps  himself  from 
being  hated  or  despised,  and  the  people  remain  satisfied  of  him, 
which  is  a  thing  very  necessary,  as  I  have  shown  at  length  before. 
And  one  of  the  best  remedies  a  prince  can  use  against  conspiracy 
is  to  keep  himself  from  being  hated  or  despised  by  the  multitude; 
for  nobody  plots  but  expects  by  the  death  of  the  prince  to  gratify 
the  people,  and  the  thought  of  offending  them  will  deter  him  from 
any  such  enterprise,  because  in  conspiracies  the  difficulties  are 
infinite.  By  experience  we  find  that  many  conspiracies  have 
been  on  foot,  but  few  have  succeeded,  because  no  man  can  con- 
spire alone,  nor  choose  a  confederate  but  out  of  those  who  are 
discontented;  and  no  sooner  shall  you  impart  your  mind  to  a  mal- 
content but  you  give  him  opportunity  to  reconcile  himself,  because  • 
there  is  no  advantage  which  he  seeks  but  what  he  may  hope  to 
gain  by  betraying  you.  So  that  the  gain  being  certain  on  that  side, 
and  hazardous  and  uncertain  on  the  other,  he  must  be  either  an 
extraordinary  friend  to  you  or  an  implacable  enemy  to  the  prince 
if  he  does  not  betray  you;  in  short,  on  the  side  of  the  conspirators 
there  is  nothing  but  fear  and  jealousy,  and  apprehension  of  pun- 
ishment; but,  on  the  prince's  side,  there  is  the  majesty  of  the 
government,  the  laws,  the  assistance  of  his  friends  and  state, 
which  defend  him  so  effectually  that,  if  the  affections  of  the 
people  be  added  to  them,  no  man  can  be  so  rash  and  precipitate 
as  to  conspire;  for  if,  before  the  execution  of  his  design,  the  con- 
spirator has  reason  to  be  afraid,  in  this  case  he  has  much  more 
afterwards,  having  offended  the  people  in  the  execution  and  left 
himself  no  refuge  to  fly  to.  Of  this  many  examples  may  be 
produced,  but  I  shall  content  myself  with  one  which  happened 
in  the  memory  of  our  fathers.  Hannibal  Bentivoglio,  grandfather 
to  this  present  Hannibal,  was  Prince  of  Bologna,  and  was  killed  by 


182  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  Canneschi  who  conspired  against  him,  none  of  his  race  being 
left  behind  but  John,  who  was  then  in  his  cradle;  the  murder 
was  no  sooner  committed  but  the  people  took  arms  and  slew  all 
the  Canneschi,  which  proceeded  only  from  the  affection  that  the 
house  of  the  Bentivoglio  had  at  that  time  among  the  populace  in 
Bologna,  which  was  then  so  great  that  when  Hannibal  was  dead, 
there  being  none  of  that  family  remaining  in  a  capacity  for  the 
government  of  the  state,  upon  information  that  at  Florence  there 
was  a  natural  son  of  the  said  Bentivoglio's,  who  till  that  time 
had  passed  only  for  the  son  of  a  smith,  they  sent  ambassadors  for 
him,  and  having  conducted  him  honorably  to  that  city,  they 
gave  him  the  government,  which  he  executed  very  well  till  the 
said  John  came  of  age.  I  conclude,  therefore,  a  prince  need  not  be 
much  apprehensive  of  conspiracies  while  the  people  are  his  friends; 
but  when  they  are  dissatisfied,  and  have  taken  prejudice  against 
him,  there  is  nothing  nor  no  person  which  he  ought  not  to  fear. 
It  has  been  the  constant  care  of  all  wise  princes  and  all 
well-governed  states  not  to  reduce  the  nobility  to  despair  nor 
the  people  to  discontent,  which  is  one  of  the  most  material  things 
a  prince  is  to  prevent.  Among  the  best-ordered  monarchies  of 
our  times  France  is  one,  in  which  there  are  many  good  laws  and 
constitutions  tending  to  the  liberty  and  preservation  of  the  king. 
The  first  of  them  is  the  Parliament  and  the  authority  wherewith 
it  is  vested;  for  he  who  was  the  founder  of  that  monarchy,  was 
sensible  of  the  ambition  and  insolence  of  the  nobles,  and  judged 
it  convenient  to  have  them  bridled  and  restrained;  he  knew, 
on  the  other  side,  the  hatred  of  the  people  against  the  nobility, 
and  that  it  proceeded  from  fear,  and  he  desired  to  protect  the 
people;  but  in  order  to  save  himself  from  the  displeasure  of  the 
nobles  if  he  sided  with  the  people,  or  from  the  malice  of  the  people 
if  he  inclined  to  the  nobles,  he  established  a  third  party  to  be 
arbitrator,  who,  without  any  reflection  upon  the  king,  should 
keep  the  nobility  under,  and  protect  the  people;  nor  could  there 
be  a  better  order,  wiser,  nor  of  greater  security  to  the  king  and  the 
kingdom,  whence  we  may  deduce  another  observation — That 
princes  are  to  leave  things  of  injustice  and  envy  to  the  ministry 
and  execution  of  others,  but  acts  of  favor  and  grace  are  to  be 
performed  by  themselves.  .  .  . 

Ch.  xxi.    How  a  Prince  is  to  Demean  Himself  to  Gain  Reputation. 

Nothing  recommends  a  prince  so  highly  to  the  world  as  great 
enterprises  and  noble  expressions  of  his  own  valor  and  conduct. 
We  have  in  our  days  Ferdinand,  King  of  Aragon — the  present 


MACHIAVELLI  183 

King  of  Spain — who  may,  and  not  improperly,  be  called  a  new 
prince,  since  from  one  of  the  smallest  and  weakest  he  has  become 
for  fame  and  renown  the  greatest  monarch  in  Christendom;  and  if 
his  exploits  be  considered  you  will  find  them  all  brave,  but  some  of 
them  extraordinary.  In  the  beginning  of  his  reign  he  invaded  the 
kingdom  of  Granada,  and  that  enterprise  was  the  foundation 
of  his  grandeur.  He  began  it  leisurely,  and  without  suspicion 
of  impediment,  holding  the  barons  of  Castile  employed  in  that 
service,  and  so  intent  upon  that  war  that  they  dreamt  not  of 
any  innovation,  while  in  the  meantime,  before  they  were  aware, 
he  got  reputation  and  authority  over -them.  He  found  out  a  way 
of  maintaining  his  army  at  the  expense  of  the  church  and  the 
people;  and  by  the  length  of  that  war  he  established  such  order  and 
discipline  among  his  soldiers,  that  afterwards  they  gained  him 
many  honorable  victories.  Besides  this,  to  adapt  him  for  greater 
enterprises  (always  making  religion  his  pretence),  by  a  kind  of 
devout  cruelty  he  destroyed  and  exterminated  the  Moors,  than 
which  nothing  could  be  more  strange  or  deplorable.  Under 
the  same  cloak  of  religion  he  invaded  Africa,  made  his  expe- 
dition into  Italy,  assaulted  France,  and  began  many  great 
things  which  always  kept  the  minds  of  his  subjects  in  admira- 
tion and  suspense,  wondering  what  the  event  of  his  machinations 
would  be.  And  these  enterprises  had  so  sudden  a  spring  and 
result  one  from  the  other  that  they  gave  no  leisure  to  any  man  to 
be  at  quiet,  or  to  continue  anything  against  him.  It  is  likewise 
of  great  advantage  to  a  prince  to  give  some  rare  example  of  his 
own  administration  at  home  whenever  the  actions,  good  or  bad, 
of  someone  in  civil  life  give  him  opportunity  to  reward  or  punish 
such  actions  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  himself  much  talked  of  in 
the  world.  Above  all,  a  prince  is  to  have  a  care  in  all  his  actions 
to  behave  himself  so  as  to  give  himself  the  reputation  of  being 
excellent  as  well  as  great. 

A  prince  is  likewise  much  esteemed  when  he  shows  him- 
self a  sincere  friend  or  a  generous  enemy — that  is,  when  with- 
out any  hesitation  he  declares  himself  in  favor  of  one  against 
another,  which,  as  it  is  more  frank  and  princely,  so  it  is  more 
profitable  than  to  stand  neutral;  for  if  two  of  your  potent  neigh- 
bors be  at  war,  they  are  either  of  such  condition  that  you  are 
to  be  afraid  of  the  victor  or  not;  in  either  of  which  cases  it  will 
be  always  more  for  your  benefit  to  discover  yourself  freely,  and 
make  a  fair  war.  For  in  the  first  case,  if  you  do  not  declare, 
you  shall  be  a  prey  to  him  who  overcomes,  and  it  will  be  a  pleasure 
and  satisfaction  to  him  that  is  conquered  to  see  you  his  fellow- 


184  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

sufferer;  nor  will  anybody  either  defend  or  receive  you,  and  the 
reason  is  because  the  conqueror  will  never  understand  them  to  be 
his  friends  who  would  not  assist  him  in  his  distress;  and  he  that 
is  worsted  will  not  receive  you  because  you  neglected  to  share  his 
fortune  with  your  arms  in  your  hands.  .  .  .  And  those  princes  who  are 
ill-advised  to  avoid  some  present  danger  by  following  the  neutral 
way  are  most  commonly  ruined;  but  when  you  pronounce  your- 
self courageously  in  favor  of  one  party,  if  he  with  whom  you  join 
overcome,  though  he  be  very  powerful,  and  you  seem  to  remain  at 
his  discretion,  yet  he  is  obliged  to  you,  and  must  needs  have  a 
respect  for  you;  and  men  are  not  so  wicked  with  signal  and  ex- 
emplary ingratitude  as  to  oppress  you  after  you  have  helped  them. 
Besides,  victories  are  never  so  clear  and  complete  as  to  leave  the 
conqueror  without  all  sparks  of  reflection,  and  especially  upon 
what  is  just.  But  if  your  confederate  comes  by  the  worst,  you  are 
received  by  him,  and  assisted  while  he  is  able,  and  you  become  a 
companion  of  his  fortune,  which  may  possibly  restore  you.  In  the 
second  place,  if  they  who  contend  be  of  such  condition  that  they 
have  no  occasion  to  fear,  let  which  will  overcome,  you  are  in 
prudence  to  declare  yourself  the  sooner,  because  by  assisting  the 
one  you  contribute  to  the  ruin  of  the  other,  whom,  if  your  con- 
federate had  been  wise,  he  ought  rather  to  have  preserved;  if  he 
whom  you  help  overcomes,  he  remains  wholly  in  your  power,  and 
by  your  assistance  he  must  of  necessity  overcome.  And  here 
it  is  to  be  noted,  if  he  can  avoid  it,  a  prince  is  never  to  league 
himself  with  another  more  powerful  than  himself  in  an  offen- 
sive war;  because  in  that  case  if  the  latter  overcomes  the 
former  remains  at  his  mercy,  and  princes  ought  to  be  as  cau- 
tious as  possible  of  falling  under  the  discretion  of  other  people. 
The  Venetians,  when  there  was  no  necessity  for  it,  associated 
with  France  against  the  Duke  of  Milan,  and  that  association  was 
the  cause  of  their  ruin.  But  where  it  is  not  to  be  avoided,  as 
happened  to  the  Florentines  when  the  Pope  and  the  Spaniard 
sent  their  armies  against  Lombardy,  then  a  prince  is  to  adhere 
for  the  reasons  aforesaid.  Nor  is  any  prince  or  government  to 
imagine  that  in  those  cases  any  certain  counsel  can  be  taken, 
because  the  affairs  of  this  world  are  so  ordered  that  in  avoiding 
one  mischief  we  fall  commonly  into  another.  But  a  man's  wis- 
dom is  most  conspicuous  where  he  is  able  to  distinguish  of  dangers 
and  make  choice  of  the  least. 

Moreover,  it  is  a  prince's  wisdom  to  show  himself  a  virtuoso, 
and  honorer  of  all  that  is  excellent  in  any  art  whatsoever. 
He  is  likewise  to  encourage  and  assure  his  subjects  that  they 


MACHIAVELLI  185 

may  live  quietly  in  peace,  and  exercise  themselves  in  their  several 
vocations,  whether  merchandise,  agriculture,  or  any  other  em- 
ployment whatever,  to  the  end  that  no  one  may  forbear  improving 
or  embellishing  his  estate  for  fear  it  should  be  taken  from  him, 
or  forbear  advancing  his  trade  in  apprehension  of  taxes;  but  the 
prince  is  rather  to  excite  them  by  propositions  of  reward  and  im- 
munities to  all  such  as  shall  any  way  amplify  his  territory  or 
power.  He  is  obliged,  likewise,  at  convenient  times  in  the  year 
to  entertain  the  people  by  feastings  and  plays,  and  spectacles  of 
recreation;  and,  because  all  cities  are  divided  into  companies  or 
wards,  he  ought  to  have  respect  to  those  societies,  be  merry  with 
them  sometimes,  and  give  them  some  instance  of  his  humanity 
and  magnificence,  but  always  retaining  the  majesty  of  his  degree, 
which  is  never  to  be  debased  in  any  case  whatever. 


SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

Burd,  "Machiavelli,"  Cambridge  Modern  History,  Vol.  I,  ch.  vi. 

Villari,  Niccolb  Machiavelli  and  his  Times. 

Mundt,  Niccolb  Machiavelli  und  das  System  der  modernen  Polilik,  chs.  i-iii,  v. 

Franck,  Reformateurs  et  publicistes  de  VEurope,  moyen  age,  pp.  287-293. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  Ancient  and  Medieval,  ch.  xi. 

Franck,  Reformaleurs  et  publicistes  de  V Europe,  moyen  age,  pp.  293-335. 

Macaulay,  "Machiavelli,"  in  Essays,  Vol.  II,  pp.  1-37. 

Morley,  Machiavelli  (Romanes  Lectures,  1897). 

Figgis,  Studies  of  Political  Thought,  from  Gerson  to  Grotius,  Lect.  Ill:  "Luther 

and  Machiavelli,"  pp.  62-107. 

Janet,  Hisloire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  I,  pp.  491  et  seq. 
Bluntschli,  Geschichte  der  neueren  Staatswissenschaft,  pp.  13-26. 
Dyer,  Machiavelli  and  the  Modern  State. 
Baudrillart,  /.  Bodin  et  son  temps,  pp.  16-24. 
Mundt,  Niccolb,  Machiavelli  und  das  System  der  modernen  Politik,  chs.  vii- 

xiii,  xv-xxv. 


CALVIN 


.     JOHN  CALVIN  (1509-1564) 
INTRODUCTION 

By  calling  Machiavelli  the  first  "modern"  writer  in  political 
theory  it  is  not  intended  to  suggest  that  after  him  mediaeval  methods 
of  argumentation  disappeared  and  that  from  his  time  there  was 
a  sharp  change  in  point  of  view.  Even  after  the  partially  liberal- 
izing and  humanizing  effects  of  the  Renaissance  and  Reformation 
had  become  manifest,  the  more  influential  writers  of  the  sixteenth 
century  continued  to  found  their  doctrines  upon  scriptural  inter- 
pretations, and  upon  scholastic  conceptions  of  natural  law.  One 
consequence  of  the  Renaissance  upon  political  discussion  was  to 
cause  a  somewhat  more  frequent  recourse  to  pagan  history  for 
illustrative  materials;  and  the  destruction  of  ecclesiastical  unity 
by  the  Protestant  secession  weakened,  for  a  large  number  of 
readers,  the  force  of  church  tradition  as  an  appeal,  and  also  helped 
to  expel  from  the  imagination  the  notion  of  universal  empire. 
But  the  characteristic  style  of  disputation  continued  to  be  dog- 
matic, not  empirical. 

The  Protestant  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century  did  not  lead  ' 
its  first  champions  to  profound  political  thought.  Martin  Luther 
gave  incidental  consideration  to  certain  problems  of  civil  govern- 
ment. The  complete  separation,  of  spiritual  and  secular  offices 
was  a  part  of  his  doctrine.  Moreover,  in  the  course  of  his  life 
he  was  confronted  with  certain  practical  political  questions 
upon  which  he  felt  himself  required  to  make  definite  pronounce- 
ment as  to  the  implications  of  his  doctrine;  thus  we  read  his 
declarations  as  to  the  divine  sanction  of  secular  authority  and  as 
to  the  duty  of  Christians  to  submit  thereto.  But  Luther 's 
dominating  interest  was  in  theological  and  ethical  questions.  Me- 
lancthon's  task  was  to  give  metaphysical  basis  to  the  Lutheran 
I  tenets  in  theology  and  ethics.  Among  early  Protestants  only' 
[Calvin,  the  theologian  of  the  French  Reformed  church,  devoted 
attention  to  systematic  study  of  political  subjects.  To  this  he 

189 


190  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

was  led  by  the  events  of  his  life;  and  for  the  discussion  of  such 
matters  he  was  better  fitted,  than  the  other  dissentients  of  his 
time,  by  the  nature  of  his  training  as  well  as  by  the  quality  of  his 
mind.  ^ 

Calvin  was  a  native  of  northern  France.  His  first  preparation 
was  for  the  ministry;  but  feeling  some  dissent  from  the  Roman 
worship,  he  turned  to  legal  study.  Soon  thereafter  he  came  more 
directly  under  the  influence  of  the  new  opinions  that  were  spread- 
ing from  Germany  into  France;  so  he  withdrew  from  the  Catholic 
church  and  aligned  himself  definitely  with  the  reform  movement. 
This  movement  was  being  attacked  by  the  French  government, 
and  Calvin  found  it  necessary  to  leave  his  native  land.  He  went 
to  Geneva,  establishing  himself  among  the  religious  leaders  there. 
This  community  had  just  transformed  its  former  governmental 
autonomy  into  full  independence  by  saving  itself  from  absorption 
by  Savoy.  Calvin  was  in  time  accorded  autocratic^  leadership 
in  political  and  ecclesiastical  affairs  in  Geneva,  and  in  1542  he  put 
in  operation  there  a  theocratic  system  of  government  which  he 
had  devised. 

Calvin's  views  of  church  and  state-government,  which  he  applied 
in  Geneva,  had  been  set  forth  in  his  Institutes  of  the  Christian 
Religion,  which  had  been  published  in  1535.  The  last  chapter 
(from  which  the  selections  below  are  taken)  treats  of  civil  govern- 
ment. The  Lutheran  doctrine  of  the  supreme  authority  of 
individual  conscience  had  proved  in  practice  to  be  a  more  radical 
factor  of  disintegration  in  religion  and  politics  than  had  been  anti- 
cipated by  the  first  proponents  of  the  doctrine.  Calvin  found  it 
important  to  demonstrate  the  indispensableness  of  civil  govern- 
ment to  the  Christian  order,  as  Luther  had  done  in  a  more  practical 
way.  It  was  also  a  necessary  part  of  Calvin's  plan  to  outline  the 
duties  of  jnagigt -rates,  the  authority  and  j>coge  of  laws,  and  the 
bounds  wjtlntLjwhicj^obedience  to  magistrates  was  absolutely 
required  of  Christians. 


CALVIN  191 

READINGS  FROM  THE  INSTITUTES  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN 
RELIGION l 

1.     The  Nature  and  Function  of  Civil  Government* 

i.  Having  shown  above  that  there  is  a  twofold  government  in 
man,  and  having  fully  considered  the  one  which,  placed  in  the 
soul  or  inward  man,  relates  to  eternal  life,  we  are  here  called  to 
say  something  of  the  other,  which  pertains  only  to  civil  institu- 
tions and  the  external  regulation  of  manners.  For  although  this 
subject  seems  from  its  nature  to  be  unconnected  with  the  spiritual 
doctrine  of  faith,  which  I  have  undertaken  to  treat,  it  will  appear, 
as  we  proceed,  that  I  have  properly  connected  them,  nay,  that 
I  am  under  the  necessity  of  doing  so,  especially  while,  on  the  one 
hand,  frantic  and  barbarous  men  are  furiously  endeavoring  to 
overturn  the  order  established  by  God,  and,  on  the  other,  the 
flatterers  of  princes,  extolling  their  power  without  measure, 
hesitate  not  to  oppose  it  to  the  government  of  God.  Unless  we 
meet  both  extremes,  the  purity  of  the  faith  will  perish.  We 
may  add  that  it  in  no  small  degree  concerns  us  to  know  how  kindly 
God  has  here  consulted  for  the  human  race,  that  pious  zeal  may  the 
more  strongly  urge  us  to  testify  our  gratitude.  And  first,  before 
entering  on  the  subject  itself,  it  is  necessary  to  attend  to  the  distinc- 
tion which  we  formerly  laid  down,  lest,  as  often  happens  to  many, 
we  imprudently  confound  these  two  things,  the  nature  of  which 
is  altogether  different.  For  some,  on  hearing  that  liberty  is 
promised  in  the  gospel,  a  liberty"  which  acknowledges  no  king 
and  no  magistrate  among  men,  but  looks  to  Christ  alone,  think 
that  they  can  receive  no  benefit  from  their  liberty  so  long  as 
they  see  any  power  placed  over  them.  Accordingly,  they  think 
that  nothing  will  be  safe,  until  the  whole  world  is  changed  into  a 
new  form,  when  there  will  be  neither  courts,  nor  laws,  nor  magis- 
trates, nor  anything  of  the  kind  to  interfere,  as  they  suppose, 
with  their  liberty.  But  he  who  knows  to  distinguish  between  the 
.  body  and  the  soul,  between  the  present  fleeting  life  and  that 
I  which  is  future  and  eternal,  will  have  no  difficulty  in  understand- 
;  ing  that  the  spiritual  kingdom  of  Christ  and  civil  government 
\are  things  very  widely  separated.  Seeing,  therefore,  it  is  a 
Jewish  vanity  to  seek  and  include  the  kingdom  of  Christ  under 
the  elements  of  this  world,  let  us,  considering,  as  Scripture  clearly 

1  The  selections  are  taken  from  Vol.  Ill  of  the  translation  by  Henry  Bev- 
eridge.     Three  volumes.     Edinburgh,  1845-6.  _  Calvin  Translation  Society. 
The  passages  are  from  Book  IV,  ch.  xx:  Of  Civil  Government. 

2  Bk.  IV,  ch.  xx,  §§1-4. 


\ 


192  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

teaches,  that  the  blessings  which  we  derive  from  Christ  are 
spiritual,  remember  to  confine  the  liberty  which  is  promised  and 
offered  to  us  in  him  within  its  proper  limits.  For  why  is  it  that 
the  very  same  apostle  who  bids  us  "  stand  fast  in  the  liberty 
wherewith  Christ  has  made  us  free,  and  be  not  again  entangled 
with  the  yoke  of  bondage  "  (Gal.  v.  i),  in  another  passage  for- 
bids slaves  to  be  solicitous  about  their  state  (i  Cor.  vii.  21), 
unless  it  be  that  spiritual  liberty  is  perfectly  compatible  with 
civil  servitude?  In  this  sense  the  following  passages  are  to  be 
understood:  "There  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there  is  neither 
bond  nor  free,  there  is  neither  male  nor  female"  (Gal.  iii.  28). 
Again:  " There  is  neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  circumcision  nor  uncir- 
cumcision,  barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor  free:  but  Christ  is  all 
and  in  all  "  (Col.  iii.  n).  It  is  thus  intimated,  that  it  matters  not 
what  your  condition  is  among  men,  nor  under  what  laws  you 
live,  since  in  them  the  kingdom  of  Christ  does  not  at  all  consist. 

2.  Still  the  distinction  does  not  go  so  far  as  to  justify  us  in 
supposing  that  the  whole  scheme  of  civil  government  is  matter  of 
pollution,  with  which  Christian  men  have  nothing  to  do.  Fa- 
natics, indeed,  delighting  in  unbridled  license,  insist  and  vociferate 
that,  after  we  are  dead  by  Christ  to  the  elements  of  this  world,  and 
being  translated  into  the  kingdom  of  God  sit  among  the  celestials, 
it  is  unworthy  of  us,  and  far  beneath  our  dignity,  to  be  occupied 
with  those  profane  and  impure  cares  which  relate  to  matters 
alien  to  a  Christian  man.  To  what  end,  they  say,  are  laws 
without  courts  and  tribunals?  But  what  has  a  Christian  man 
to  do  with  courts?  Nay,  if  it  is  unlawful  to  kill,  what  have  we  to 
do  with  laws  and  courts?  But  as  we  lately  taught  that  that  kind 
of  government  is  distinct  from  the  spiritual  and  internal  king- 
dom of  Christ,  so  we  ought  to  know  that  they  are  not  adverse  to 
each  other.  The  former,  in  someineasurej^begins  the  heavenly 
kingdom  in  usf  even  now  upon  earEhYanorTn  this  mortal  and  evanes- 


cent life  commences  immortal  and  incorruptible  blessedness, 
while  to  the  latter  it  is  assigned,  so  long  as  we  live  among  men, 
to  foster  and  maintain  the  external  worship  of  God,  to  defend 
sound  doctrine  and  the  condition  of  the  church,  to  adapt  our 
conduct  to  human  society,  to  form  our  manners  to  civil  justice, 
to  conciliate  us  to  each  other,  to  cherish  common  peace  and  tran- 
quillity. All  these  I  confess  to  be  superfluous,  if  the  kingdom 
of  God,  as  it  now  exists  within  us,  extinguishes  the  present  life. 
But  ifJjLi§_the  will  of  God  tfrflt  while  we  aspire  to  true  piety  we 
are-pilgrims  upon  the  earth,  and  if  such  pilgrimage  stands  in  need 
of  such  aids,  those  who  take  them  away  from  man  rob  him  of 


CALVIN  193 

his  humanity.  As  to  their  allegation  that  there  ought  to  be  such 
perfection  in  the  church  of  God  that  her  guidance  should  suffice 
for  law,  they  stupidly  imagine  her  to  be  such  as  she  never  can  be  , 
found  in  the  community  of  men.  For  while  the  insolence  of  the 
wicked  is  so  great,  and  their  iniquity  is  so  stubborn,  that  it  can 
scarcely  be  curbed  by  any  severity  of  laws,  what  do  we  expect 
would  be  done  by  -those  whom  force  can  scarcely  repress  from  doing 
ill,  were  they  to  see  perfect  impunity  for  their  wickedness? 

3.     But  we  shall  have  a  fitter  opportunity  of  speaking  of  the 
t  .     All  we  wish  to  be  understood  at  present 


is,  that  it  is  perfect  barbarism  to  think  of  exterminating  it,  its 
use  among  men  being  not  less  than  that  of  bread  and  water, 
light  and  air,  while  its  dignity  is  much  more  excellent.  Its  object 
is  not  merely,  like  those  things,  to  enable  men  to  breathe,  eat, 
drink  and  be  warmed  (though  it  includes  all  these,  while  it 
enables  them  to  live  together)  ;  this,  I  say,  is  not  its  only  object, 
t>ut  it  is  that  no  idolatry,  no  blasphemy  against  the  name  of  God:,'  ? 
no  calumnies  against  his  truth,  nor  other  offences  to  religion, 
break  out  and  be  disseminated  among  the  people;  that  the/ 
public  quiet  be  not  disturbed,  that  every  man's  property  be  kept 
secure,  that  men  may  carry  on  innocent  commerce  with  each 
other,  that  honesty  and  modesty  be  cultivated;  in  short,  that  a 
public  form  of  religion  may  exist  among  Christians,  and  humanity 
among  men.  Let  no  one  be  surprised  that  I  now  attribute  the 
task  of  constituting  religion  aright  to  human  polity,  though  I 
seem  above  to  have  placed  it  beyond  the  will  of  man,  since  I 
no  more  than  formerly  allow  men  at  pleasure  to  enact  laws  con- 
cerning religion  and  the  worship  of  God,  when  I  approve  of  civil 
order  which  is  directed  to  this  end,  viz.,  to  prevent  the  true 
religion,  which  is  contained  in  the  law  of  God,  from  being  with// 
impunity  openly  violated  and  polluted  by  public  blasphemy.  But 
the  reader,  by  the  help  of  a  perspicuous  arrangement,  will  better 
understand  what  view  is  to  be  taken  of  the  whole  order  of  civil 
government,  if  we  treat  of  each  of  its  parts  separately.  Now 
these  are  three:  The  Magistrate,  who  is  president  and  guardian 
of  the  laws;  the  Laws,  according  to  which  he  governs;  and  the 
People,  who  are  governed  by  the  laws,  and  obey  the  magistrate. 
Let  us  consider  then,  first,  What  is  the  function  of  the  magistrate? 
Is  it  a  lawful  calling  approved  by  God?  What  is  the  nature 
of  his  duty?  What  the  extent  of  his  power?  Secondly,  What  are 
the  laws  by  which  Christian  polity  is  to  be  regulated?  And, 
lastly,  What  is  the  use  of  laws  as  regards  the  people?  And,  What 
obedience  is  due  to  the  magistrate? 


194  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

4.  With  regard  to  the  functions  of  magistrates,  the  Lord 
has  not  only  declared  that  he  approves  and  is  pleased  with  it, 
but,  moreover,  has  strongly  recommended  it  to  us  by  the  very 
honorable  titles  which  he  has  conferred  upon  it.  ...  Their 
functions  were  expressly  approved  by  the  Lord.  Wherefore 
no  man  can  doubt  that  civil  authority  is,  in  the  sight  of  God, 
not  only  sacred  and  lawful,  but  the  most  sacred,  and  by  far  the 
most  honorable,  of  all  stations  in  mortal  life. 

2.     The  Duties  of  Magistrates  l 

g.  The  duty  of  magistrates,  its  nature,  as  described  by  the 
word  of  God,  and  the  things  in  which  it  consists,  I  will  here  in- 
dicate in  passing.  That  it  extends  to  both  tables  of  the  law,  did 
Scripture  not  teach,  we  might  learn  from  profane  writers;  for 
no  man  has  discoursed  of  the  duty  of  magistrates,  the  enacting 
of  laws,  and  the  common  weal,  without  beginning  with  religion 

i  and  divine  worship.     Thus  all  have  confessed  that  no  polity  can 

:  be  successfully  established  unless  piety  be  its  first  care,  and  that 
those  laws  are  absurd  which  disregard  the  rights  of  God,  and 

*  consult  only  for  men.  Seeing  then  that  among  philosophers 
religion  holds  the  first  place,  and  that  the  same  thing  has  always 
been  observed  with  the  universal  consent  of  nations,  Christian 
princes  and  magistrates  may  be  ashamed  of  their  heartlessness 
if  they  make  it  not  their  care.  We  have  already  shown  that 

/  this  office  is  specially  assigned  them  by  God,  and  indeed  it  is 
right  that  they  exert  themselves  in  asserting  and  defending  the 
honor  of  Him  whose  vicegerents  they  are,  and  by  whose  favor 
they  rule.  Hence  in  Scripture  holy  kings  are  especially  praised 
for  restoring  the  worship  of  God  when  corrupted  or  overthrown, 
or  for  taking  care  that  religion  flourished  under  them  in  purity 
and  safety.  On  the  other  hand,  the  sacred  history  sets  down 
anarchy  among  the  vices,  when  it  states  that  there  was  no  king 
in  Israel,  and,  therefore,  every  one  did  as  he  pleased  (Judges  xxi. 
25).  This  rebukes  the  folly  of  those  who  would  neglect  the  care  of 
divine  things,  and  devote  themselves  merely  to  the  administra- 
tion of  justice  among  men;  as  if  God  had  appointed  rulers  in  his 
own  name  to  decide  earthly  controversies,  and  omitted  what 
was  of  far  greater  moment,  his  own  pure  worship  as  prescribed 
by  his  law.  Such  views  are  adopted  by  turbulent  men,  who, 
in  their  eagerness  to  make  all  kinds  of  innovations  with  impunity, 
would  fain  get  rid  of  all  the  vindicators  of  violated  piety.  In 
i  Bk.  IV,  ch.  xx,  §  9. 


CALVIN  195 

regard  to  the  second  table  of  the  law,  Jeremiah  addresses  rulers, 
"Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Execute  ye  judgments  and  righteousness,  ^ 
and  deliver  the  spoiled  out  of  the  hand  of  the  oppressor:  and  do 
no  wrong,  do  no  violence  to  the  stranger,  the  fatherless,  nor  the 
widow,  neither  shed  innocent  blood  "  (Jer.  xxii.  3).  To  the  same 
effect  is  the  exhortation  in  the  Psalm,  "  Defend  the  poor  and  father-  s 
less;  do  justice  to  the  afflicted  and  needy.  Deliver  the  poor  and 
needy;  rid  them  out  of  the  hand  of  the  wicked  "  (Psalm  Ixxxii. 
3,  4).  Moses  also  declared  to  the  princes  whom  he  had  sub- 
stituted for  himself,  "Hear  the  causes  between  your  brethren, 
and  judge  righteously  between  every  man  and  his  brother,  and 
the  stranger  that  is  with  him.  Ye  shall  not  respect  persons  in 
judgment;  but  ye  shall  hear  the  small  as  well  as  the  great:  ye 
shall  not  be  afraid  of  the  face  of  man,  for  the  judgment  is  God's  " 
(Deut.  i.  1 6)  1  .  .  .  But  as  rulers  cannot  do  this  unless  they 
protect  the  good  against  the  injuries  of  the  bad,  and  give  aid 
and  protection  to  the  oppressed,  they  are  armed  with  power_to  j 
curb  manifest  evil  doers  and  criminals,  by  whose  misconduct ) 
the  public  tranquillity  is  disturbed  or  harassed.  For  we  have 
full  experience  of  the  truth  of  Solon's  saying,  that  all  public 
matters  depend  on  reward  and  punishment;  that  where  these 
are  wanting,  the  whole  discipline  of  state  totters  and  falls  to  / 
pieces.  For  in  the  minds  of  many  the  love  of  equity  and  justice 
grows  cold,  if  due  honor  be  not  paid  to  virtue,  and  the  licentious- 
ness of  the  wicked  cannot  be  restrained,  without  strict  discipline 
and  the  infliction"  of  punishment.  The  two  things  are  com- 
prehended by  the  prophet  when  he  enjoins  kings  and  other  rulers 
to  execute  "judgment  and  righteousness  "  (Jer.  xxi.  12;  xxii.  3). 
It  is  righteousness  (justice)  to  take  charge  of  the  innocent,  to 
defend  and  avenge  them,  and  set  them  free :  it  is  judgment  to  with- 
stand the  audacity  of  the  wicked,  to  repress  their  violence,  and 
punish  their  faults.  2 

3.     The  Limits  of  Obedience  Due  to  Civil  Rulers  8 

22.  /  The  first  duty  of  subjects  towards  their  rulers,  is  to  enter- 

Itain  the  most  honorable  views  of  their  office,  recognizing  it  as  a 
delegated  jurisdiction  from  God,  and  on  that  account  receiving 
and  reverencing  them  as  the  ministers  and  ambassadors  of  God. 
For  you  will  find  some  who  show  themselves  very  obedient  to 

1  Other  biblical  quotations  of  similar  content  follow. 

2  Further  sections  on  the  duties  of  magistrates  treat  of  their  duty  to  carry  on 
war  and  of  their  right  to  raise  revenue. 

a  Bk.  IV,  ch.  xx,  §§  22-25,  29-32. 


196  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

magistrates,  and  would  be  unwilling  that  there  should  be  no  magis- 
\  trates  to  obey,  because  they  know  this  is  expedient  for  the  public 
good,  and  yet  the  opinion  which  those  persons  have  of  magistrates 
l  is,  that  they  are  a  kind  of  necessary  evils.  But  Peter  requires 
something  more  of  us  when  he  says,  " Honor  the  king"  (i  Pet. 
ii.  17);  and  Solomon  when  he  says,  "My  son,  fear  thou  the  Lord 
and  the  king  "  (Prov.  xxiv.  21).  For,  under  the  term  honor, 
the  former  includes  a  sincere  and  candid  esteem,  and  the  latter, 
by  joining  the  king  with  God,  shows  that  he  is  invested  with  a 
kind  of  sacred  veneration  and  dignity.  We  have  also  the  re- 
markable injunction  of  Paul,  "Be  subject  not  only  for  wrath,  but 
also  for  conscience  sake  "  (Rom.  xiii.  5).  By  this  he  means, 
that  subjects,  in  submitting  to  princes  and  governors,  are  not  to 
be  influenced  merely  by  fear  (just  as  those  submit  to  an  armed 
enemy  who  see  vengeance  ready  to  be  executed  if  they  resist) ,  but 
because  the  obedience  which  they  yield  is  rendered  to  God  him- 
self, inasmuch  as  their  power  is  from  God.  I  speak  not  of  the  men  as 
if  the  mask  of  dignity  could  cloak  folly,  or  cowardice,  or  cruelty 
of  wicked  and  flagitious  manners,  and  thus  acquire  for  vice  the 
praise  of  virtue;  but  I  say  that  the  station  itself  is  deserving  of 
honor  and  reverence,  and  that  those  who  rule  should,  in  respect 
of  their  office,  be  held  by  us  in  esteem  and  veneration. 

23.  From  this,  a  second  consequence  is,  that  we  must  with 
ready  minds  prove  our  obedience  to  them,  whether  in  complying 
with  edicts,  or  in  paying  tribute,  or  in  undertaking  public  offices 
and  burdens  which  relate  to  the  common  defence,  or  in  executing 
any  other  orders.  "Let  every  soul,"  says  Paul,  "be  subject  unto 
the  highest  powers."  "Whosoever,  therefore,  resisteth  the 
power,  resisteth  the  ordinance  of  God  "  (Rom.  xiii.  1,2).  Writing 
to  Titus,  he  says,  "  Put  them  in  mind  to  be  subject  to  principalities 
and  powers,  to  obey  magistrates,  to  be  ready  to  every  good  work  " 
(Tit.  iii.  i).1  .  .  .  Let  no  man  here  deceive  himself,  since  we 
cannot  resist  the  magistrate  without  resisting  God.  For,  although 
an  unarmed  magistrate  may  seem  to  be  despised  with  impunity, 
yet  God  is  armed,  and  will  signally  avenge  this  contempt.  Under 
this  obedience,  I  comprehend  the  restraint  which  private  men 
ought  to  impose  on  themselves  in  public,  not  interfering  with 
public  business,  or  rashly  encroaching  on  the  province  of  the 
magistrate,  or  attempting  anything  at  all  of  a  public  nature./  If 
it  is  proper  that  anything  in  a  public  ordinance  should  be  corrected, 
let  them  not  act  tumultuously,  or  put  their  hands  to  a  work 
where  they  ought  to  feel  that  their  hands  are  tied,  but  let  them 
1  Similar  biblical  quotations  follow. 


CALVIN  197 

leave  it  to  the  cognizance  of  the  magistrate,  whose  hand  alone 
here  is  free.  My  meaning  is,  let  them  not  dare  to  do  it  without 
being  ordered.  For  when  the  command  of  the  magistrate  is 
given,  they  too  are  invested  with  public  authority.  For  as, 
according  to  the  common  saying,  the  eyes  and  ears  of  the  prince 
are  his  counsellors,  so  one  may  not  improperly  say  that  those 
who,  by  his  command,  have  the  charge  of  managing  affairs,  are 
his  hands. 

24.  But  as  we  have  hitherto  described  the  magistrate  who  truly 
is  what  he  is  called,  viz.,  the  father  of  his  country,  and  (as  the 
Poet  speaks)  the  pastor  of  the  people,  the  guardian  of  peace, 
the  president  of  justice,  the  vindicator  of  innocence,  he  is  justly 
to  be  deemed  a  madman  who  disapproves  of  such  authority. 
And  since  in  almost  all  ages  we  see  that  some  princes,  careless 
about  all  their  duties  on  which  they  ought  to  have  been  intent, 
live,  without  solicitude,  in  luxurious  sloth,  others,  bent  on  their 
own  interests,  venally  prostitute  all  rights,  privileges,  judgments, 
and  enactments;  others  pillage  poor  people  of  their  money,  and 
afterwards  squander  it  in  insane  largesses;  others  act  as  mere  rob- 
bers pillaging  houses,  violating  matrons,  and  slaying  the  innocent ; 
many  cannot  be  persuaded  to  recognize  such  persons  for  princes, 
whose  command,  as  far  as  lawful,  they  are  bound  to  obey.     For 
while  in  this  unworthy  conduct,  and  among  atrocities  so  alien, 
not  only  from  the  duty  of  the  magistrate,  but  also  of  the  man, 
they  behold  no  appearance  of  the  image  of  God,  which  ought  to 
be  conspicuous  in  the  magistrate,  while  they  see  not  a  vestige  of 
that  minister  of  God,  who  was  appointed  to  be  a  praise  to  the 
good  and  a  terror  to  the  bad,  they  cannot  recognize  the  ruler 
whose  dignity  and  authority  Scripture  recommends  to  us.    And 
undoubtedly,  the  natural  feeling  of  the  human  mind  has  always 
been  not  less  to  assail  tyrants  with  hatred  and  execration,  than  to 
look  up  to  just  kings  with  love  and  veneration. 

25.  But  if  we  have  respect  to  the  word  of  God,  it  will  lead  us 
farther,  and  make  us  subject  not  only  to  the  authority  of  those 
princes  who  honestly  and  faithfully  perform  their  duty  toward  us, 
but  all  princes,  by  whatever  means  they  have  so  become,  although 
there  is  nothing  they  less  perform  than  the  duty  of  princes. 
For  though  the  Lord  declares  that  a  ruler  to  maintain  our  safety 
is  the  highest  gift  of  his  beneficence,  and  prescribes  to  rulers  them- 
selves their  proper  sphere,  he  at  the  same  time  declares,  that  of 
whatever  description  they  may  be,  they  derive  their  power  from 
none  but  him.     Those,  indeed,  who  rule  for  the  public  good,  are 
true  examples  and  specimens  of  his  beneficence,  while  those  who 


198  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

. ,  domineer  unjustly  and  tyrannically  are  raised  up  by  him  to 
punish  the  people  for  their  iniquity.  Still  all  alike  possess  that 
sacred  majesty  with  which  he  has  invested  lawful  power.  .  .  .  We 
need  not  labor  to  prove  that  an  impious  king  is  a  mark  of  the 
Lord's  anger,  since  I  presume  no  one  will  deny  it,  and  that  this  is 
not  less  true  of  a  king  than  of  a  robber  who  plunders  your  goods, 
an  adulterer  who  defiles  your  bed,  and  an  assassin  who  aims  at 
your  life,  since  all  such  calamities  are  classed  by  Scripture  among 
the  curses  of  God.  But  let  us  insist  at  greater  length  in  proving 
what  does  not  so  easily  fall  in  with  the  views  of  men,  that  even 
an  individual  of  the  worst  character,  one  most  unworthy  of  all 
honor,  if  invested  with  public  authority,  receives  that  illustrious 
divine  power  which  the  Lord  has  by  his  word  devolved  on  the 
ministers  of  his  justice  and  judgment,  and  that,  accordingly,  in 
so  far  as  public  obedience  is  concerned,  he  is  to  be  held  in  the  same 
honor  and  reverence  as  the  best  of  kings. 

29.  This  feeling  of  reverence,  and  even  of  piety,  we  owe  to  the 
utmost  to  all  our  rulers,  be  their  characters  what  they  may. 
This  I  repeat  the  oftener,  that  we  may  learn  not  to  consider  the 
individuals  themselves,  but  hold  it  to  be  enough  that  by  the  will 
of  the  Lord  they  sustain  a  character  on  which  he  has  impressed 
and  engraven  inviolable  majesty.  But  rulers,  you  will  say,  owe 
mutual  duties  to  those  under  them.  This  I  have  already  con- 
fessed. But  if  from  this  you  conclude  that  obedience  is  to  be 
returned  to  none  but  just  governors,  you  reason  absurdly.  Hus- 
bands are  bound  by  mutual  duties  to  their  wives,  and  parents  to 
their  children.  Should  husbands  and  parents  neglect  their 
duty;  should  the  latter  be  harsh  and  severe  to  the  children  whom 
they  are  enjoined  not  to  provoke  to  anger,  and  by  their  severity 
harass  them  beyond  measure;  should  the  former  treat  with  the 
greatest  contumely  the  wives  whom  they  are  enjoined  to  love  and 
to  spare  as  the  weaker  vessels;  would  children  be  less  bound  in 
duty  to  their  parents,  and  wives  to  their  husbands?  They  are 
made  subject  to  the  froward  and  undutiful.  Nay,  since  the  duty 
>f  all  is  not  to  look  behind  them,  that  is,  not  to  inquire  into  the 
duties  of  one  another,  but  to  submit  each  to  his  own  dutyj  this 
ought  especially  to  be  exemplified  in  the  case  of  those  who  are 
placed  under  the  power  of  others.  Wherefore,  if  we  are  cruelly 
tormented  by  a  savage,  if  we  are  rapaciously  pillaged  by  an 
avaricious  or  luxurious,  if  we  are  neglected  by  a  sluggish,  if,  in 
short,  we  are  persecuted  for  righteousness'  sake  by  an  impious 
and  sacrilegious  prince,  let  us  first  call  up  the  remembrance  of 


CALVIN  199 

our  faults,  which  doubtless  the  Lord  is  chastising  by  such  scourges. 
In  this  way  humility  will  curb  our  impatience.  And  let  us  reflect 
that  it  belongs  not  to  us  to  cure  these  evils,  that  all  that  remains 
for  us  is  to  implore  the  help  of  the  Lord,  in  whose  hands  are  the 
hearts  of  kings,  and  inclinations  of  kingdoms.  "God  standetl 
in  the  congregation  of  the  mighty;  he  judgeth  among  the  Gods." 
Before  his  face  shall  fall  and  be  crushed  all  kings  and  judges  of 
the  earth,  who  have  not  kissed  his  anointed,  who  have  enacted 
unjust  laws  to  oppress  the  poor  in  judgment,  and  do  violence  to 
the  cause  of  the  humble,  to  make  widows  a  prey,  and  plunder  the 
fatherless. 

30.  Herein  is  the  goodness,  power,  and  providence  of  God 
wondrously  displayed.    At  one  time  he  raises  up  manifest  avengers 
from  among  his  own  servants,  and  gives  them  his  command  to 
punish  accursed  tyranny,  and  deliver  his  people  from  calamity 
when  they  are  unjustly  oppressed;  at  another  time  he  employs, 
for  this  purpose,  the  fury  of  men  who  have  other  thoughts  and 
other  aims.     Thus  he  rescued  his  people  Israel  from  the  tyranny 
of  Pharaoh  by  Moses;  from  the  violence  of  Chusa,  king  of  Syria, 
by  Othniel;  and  from  other  bondage  by  other  kings  or  judges. 
Thus  he  tamed  the  pride  of  Tyre  by  the  Egyptians;  the  insolence 
of  the  Egyptians  by  the  Assyrians;  the  ferocity  of  the  Assyrians 
by  the  Chaldeans;  the  confidence  of  Babylon  by  the  Medes  and 
Persians, — Cyrus  having  previously  subdued  the  Medes,  while 
the  ingratitude  of  the  kings  of  Judah  and  Israel,  and  their  im- 
pious contumacy  after  all  his  kindness,  he  subdued  and  punished, 
— at  one  time  by  the  Assyrians,  at  another  by  the  Babylonians. 
All  these  things,  however,  were  not  done  in  the  same  way.    The 
former  class  of  deliverers  being  brought  forward  by  the  lawful 
call  of  God  to  perform  such  deeds,  when  they  took  up  arms  against 
kings,  did  not  all  violate  that  majesty  with  which  kings  are  in- 
vested by  divine  appointment,  but  armed  from  heaven,  they,  by 
a  greater  power,  curbed  a  less,  just  as  kings  may  lawfully  punish 
their  own  satraps.     The  latter  class,  though  they  were  directed 
by  the  hand  of  God,  as  seemed  to  him  good,  and  did  his  work 
without  knowing  it,  had  nought  but  evil  in  their  thoughts. 

31.  But  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  acts  of  the  men 
themselves,  the  Lord  by  their  means  equally  executed  his  own  work 
when  he  broke  the  bloody  sceptres  of  insolent  kings,  and  over- 
threw their  intolerable  dominations.     Let  princes  hear  and  be 
afraid;  but  let  us  at  the  same  time  guard  most  carefully  against 
spurning  or  violating  the  venerable  and  majestic  authority  of  rulers, 
an  authority  which  God  has  sanctioned  by  the  surest  edicts, 


t 


200  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

although  those  invested  with  it  should  be  most  unworthy  of  it, 

and,  as  far  as  in  them  lies,  pollute  it  by  their  iniquity.     Although 

v  the  Lord  takes  vengeance  on  unbridled  domination,  let  us  not 

therefore  suppose  that  that  vengeance  is  committed  to  us,  to 

^whom  no  command  has  been  given  but  tosobey  and  suffer.  I 
peak  only  of  private  men.  For  when  popular  magistrates  have 
been  appointed  to  curb  the  tyranny  of  kings  (as  the  ephori,  who 
were  opposed  to  kings  among  the  Spartans,  or  tribunes  of  the 
people  to  consuls  among  the  Romans,  or  demarchs  to  the  senate 
among  the  Athenians;  and,  perhaps,  there  is  something  similar 
to  this  in  the  power  exercised  in  each  kingdom  by  the  three  orders, 

.when  they  hold  their  primary  diets).  So  far  am  I  from  forbidding 
these  officially  to  check  the  undue  license  of  kings,  that  if  they 
connive  at  kings  when  they  tyrannize  and  insult  over  the  humbler 
of  the  people,  I  affirm  that  their  dissimulation  is  not  free  from 
nefarious  perfidy,  because  they  fraudulently  betray  the  liberty 
of  the  people,  while  knowing  that,  by  the  ordinance  of  God,  they 
are  its  appointed  guardians. 

32.  But  in  that  obedience  which  we  hold  to  be  due  to  the  com- 
mands of  rulers,  we  must  always  make  the  exception,  nay,  must 
be  particularly  careful  that  it  is  not  incompatible  with  obedience 
to  Him  to  whose  will  the  wishes  of  all  kings  should  be  subject, 
to  whose  decrees  their  commands  must  yield,  to  whose  majesty 
their  sceptres  must  bow.  And,  indeed,  how  preposterous  were 
it,  in  pleasing  men,  to  incur  the  offence  of  Him  for  whose  sake 
you  obey  men !  The  Lord,  therefore,  is  King  of  kings.  When  He 
opens  His  sacred  mouth,  He  alone  is  to  be  heard,  instead  of  all 
and  above  all.  We  are  subject  to  the  men  who  rule  over  us,  but 
subject  only  in  the  Lord.  If  they  command  anything., ^against 
Him,  let  us  not  pay  the  least  regard  to  it,  nor  be  moved  by  all  the 
dignity  which  they  possess  as  magistrates  —  a  dignity  to  which 
no  injury  is  done  when  it  is  subordinated  to  the  special  and  truly 
supreme  power  of  God.  On  this  ground  Daniel  denies  that  he 
had  sinned  in  any  respect  against  the  king  when  he  refused  to 
obey  his  impious  decree  (Dan.  vi.  22),  because  the  king  had  ex- 
ceeded his  limits,  and  not  only  been  injurious  to  men,  but,  by 
raising  his  horn  against  God,  had  virtually  abrogated  his  own 
power.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Israelites  are  condemned  for 
having  too  readily  obeyed  the  impious  edict  of  the  king.  For, 
when  Jeroboam  made  the  golden  calf,  they  forsook  the  temple 
of  God,  and,  in  submissiveness  to  him,  revolted  to  new  super- 
stitions (i  Kings  xii.  28).  With  the  same  facility  posterity 
had  bowed  before  the  decrees  of  their  kings.  For  this  they  are 


CALVIN  201 

severely  upbraided  by  the  Prophet  (Hosea  v.  n).  So  far  is  the 
praise  of  modesty  from  being  due  to  that  pretence  by  which 
flattering  courtiers  cloak  themselves,  and  deceive  the  simple, 
when  they  deny  the  lawfulness  of  declining  anything  imposed 
by  their  kings,  as  if  the  Lord  had  resigned  his  own  rights  to  mortals 
by  appointing  them  to  rule  over  their  fellows,  or  as  if  earthly 
power  were  diminished  when  it  is  subjected  to  its  author,  before 
whom  even  the  principalities  of  heaven  tremble  as  suppliants.  I 
know  the  imminent  peril  to  which  subjects  expose  themselves  by 
this  firmness  kings  being  most  indignant  when  they  are  contemned. 
As  Solomon  says,  "The  wrath  of  a  king  is  as  messengers  of  death" 
(Prov.  xvi.  14).  But  since  Peter,  one  of  heaven's  heralds,  has 
published  the  edict,  "We  ought  to  obey  God  rather  than  men  " 
(Acts  v.  29),  let  us  console  ourselves  with  the  thought  that  we  are 
rendering  the  obedience  which  the  Lord  requires,  when  we  endure 
anything  rather  than  turn  aside  from  piety.  And  that  our 
courage  may  not  fail,  Paul  stimulates  us  by  the  additional  con- 
sideration (i  Cor.  vii.  23),  that  we  were  redeemed  by  Christ  at 
1  the  great  price  which  our  redemption  cost  Him,  in  order  that  we 
might  not  yield  a  slavish  obedience  to  the  depraved  wishes  of 
iien,  far  less  do  homage  to  their  impiety. 


SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times : 

Fairbairn,  "Calvin  and  the  Reformed  Church,"  Cambridge  Modern  History, 

Vol.  II,  ch.  xi. 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  ch.  i,  §  I. 
Stahelin,  Johannes  Calvin. 
Baird,  Rise  of  the  Huguenots  of  France,  Vol.  I,  pp.  193-216. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  ch.  i,  §  5. 

Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  II,  pp.  25-30. 

Baudrillart,  /.  Bodin  et  son  temps,  pp.  32-43. 

Osgood,  "The  Political  Ideas  of  the  Puritans,"  I,  in  Political  Science  Quar- 
terly, Vol.  VI  (1891),  pp.  1-28. 

Kampschulte,  Johann  Calvin:  Seine  Kirche  und  sein  Staat  in  Genf,  esp. 
pp.  251-278. 


VINDICLE  CONTRA  TYRANNOS 


IX.    THE  VINDICLE  CONTRA  TYRANNOS 
INTRODUCTION 

The  doctrine  of  passive  obedience  to  temporal  authority  was 
maintained  by  Luther,  Melanchthon,  and  Calvin.  Calvin  par- 
ticularly, in  teaching  and  practice,  stood  for  severe  religious  intoler- 
ance on  the  part  of  those  in  control  of  government.  The  first 
substantial  consequence  of  the  Lutheran  views  appeared  to  be 
constraint  rather  than  freedom.  On  the  other  hand,  the  original 
Lutheran  idea  of  the  primary  worth  which  should  be  attributed 
to  individual  conscience  gave  a  decided  impetus  to  democratic 
feeling.  Moreover,  in  a  very  concrete  way  the  religious  dissent 
engendered  by  the  Protestant  movement  soon  came  to  be  pro- 
ductive of  advanced  political  reasoning.^  In  the  internal,  as  well 
as  in  the  international,  wars  of  the  later  sixteenth  century,  dif- 
ferences in  religious  doctrine  were  strongly  mixed  with  political 
rivalries  as  occasions  for  armed  conflict.  In  each  of  three  coun- 
tries— France,  England,  and  Spain — the  government,  as  supporter 
of  a  dominant  politico-religious  faction,  pursued  a  policy  of  intoler- 
ant absolutism  in  its  dealing  with  adherents  of  the  opposing  group. 
These  conditions  gave  origin  to  many  vigorous  pamphlets  written 
in  defence  of  resistance  to  governmental  tyranny  as  it  manifested 
itself  in  persecution  on  religious  or  other  grounds.  In  some  of 
these  pamphlets  the  foundations  and  limits  of  political  authority 
were  searched  deeply  and  broadly,  and  radical  doctrines  of  govern- 
mental responsibility  were  derived.  This  is  preeminently  true 
of  the  writings  of  French  Huguenots,  after  the  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew's  Day.  Democratic  ideas  are  set  forth  most  com- 
pletely in  a  tract  entitled  V indicia  contra  Tyrannos,  which  appeared 
in  1579,  under  the  pseudonym  "Stephanus  Junius  Brutus."  *  > 

1  This  work  is  generally  attributed  to  Hubert  Languet  (1518-1581),  who  was 
a  distinguished  French  diplomat  and  who  served  the  Elector  of  Saxony  on 
important  missions;  he  wrote  several  pamphlets  concerning  religious  and  polit- 
ical controversies  of  his  time.  For  references  to  discussions  of  the  authorship 
of  the  VindicicB,  cf.  Encyclopedia  Britannica  under  "Languet,"  and  Janet, 
Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  II,  p.  31,  note  (2). 

205 


I 

206  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

The  discussion  in  the  Vindicia  is  presented  in  the  form  of 
answers  to  four  questions,  which  are  as  follows:  (i)  whether 
subjects  are  bound  to  obey  a  prince  who  commands  what  is  con- 
trary to  the  law  of  God;  (2)  whether  it  is  lawful  to  resist  a  prince 
who  is  violating  the  law  of  God  and  devastating  the  church:  if  so, 
who  may  resist,  in  what  manner,  and  to  what  extent ;  (3)  whether 
and  to  what  extent  it  is  lawful  to  resist  a  prince  who  is  oppressihg 
and  destroying  the  state:  who  may  resist,  in  what  manner,  and 
by  what  right;  (4)  whether  it  is  the  right  and  duty  of  princes 
to  give  aid  to  neighboring  peoples  who  are  being  oppressed  on 
account  of  adherence  to  the  true  religion,  or  by  any  other  obvious 
tyranny. 

In  the  answer  to  the  third  question  the  author  leads  back  to  the 
origin  of  political  society.  He  builds  a  doctrine  of  popular 
sovereignty  upon  the  hypothesis  that  the  original,  natural  state 
of  mankind  was  one  of  complete  freedom,  and  that  political 
organization  was  everywhere  in  its  beginnings  a  condition  con- 
sciously and  voluntarily  assumed.  The  author's  analysis  of  the 
process  through  which  the  institution  of  civil  government  came 
about  prefigures  a  doctrine  which  furnished  the  foundation,  in 
varying  forms,  for  the  systems  of  eminent  political  philosophers 
of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  This  later  doctrine 
is  embodied  in  the  theory  of  the  "social  contract."  In  the 
Vindicia,  the  contract  is  governmental,  rather  than  social;  but 
the  author's  conclusions  as  to  the  responsibility  of  government 
and  the  right  of  resistance  rest  upon  his  statement  of  the  stipulations 
of  a  contract  by  which  the  first  ruler  of  any  state  must  be  assumed 
to  have  been  invested  with  his  powers.  As  with  the  social- 
contract  theorists,  the  analysis  here  of  an  original  contract  is 
partly  derived  from  certain  postulates  as  to  the  primitive  state  of 
mankind.  But  the  author  is  under  medieval  influences,  and  a 
primary  source  of  his  analysis  is  the  biblical  narrative  of  the  setting- 
up  of  the  first  king  over  the,  Israelites.  His  deductions  are  con- 
firmed fey  frequent  scriptural  citations  as  well  as  by  precedents 
in  law  and  in  political  history. 


VINDICIM  CONTRA  TYRANNOS  207 

READINGS  FROM  THE  VINDICT®  CONTRA  TYRANNOS1 

1.     The  Institution  of  the  King  by  the  People 

We  have  shown  above  that  it  is  God  who  establishes  kings, 
choosing  them  and  conferring  kingdoms  upon  them.  Now  we 
are  to  show  that  the  people  set  up  kings,  commit  kingdoms  to 
them,  and  confirm  the  selection  by  the,ir  suffrages.  Indeed  God 
has  willed  that  it  should  be  done  in'  this  manner,  in  order  that 
kings  should  acknowledge  that  whatever  authority  and  power 
they  possess  have  been  received  from  the  people,  and  that  they 
should,  therefore,  devote  all  their  thought  and  efforts  to  the 
interests  of  the  people.  Nor  should  kings  think  that  they  excel 
other  men  through  some  superiority  of  nature,  as  men  stand  above 
,  flocks  of  sheep  or  herds  of  cattle.  Let  them  remember  that  they 
are  born  of  the  same  stuff  as  other  men  and  have  been  raised 
from  the  ground  to  their  high  station  by  the  suffrages  and,  as  it 
were,  upon  the  shoulders,  of  the  people,  in  order  that  henceforth 
the  burden  of  the  commonwealth  should  rest  in  great  part  upon 
their  own  shoulders. 

Some  ages  before  the  people  of  Israel  demanded  a  king  of  God, 
He  had  ordained  the  law  of  royal  government,  as  indicated  in 
the  book  of  Deuteronomy  where  Moses  says:  When  thou  art  come 
into  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee,  and  shall  possess  it, 
and  shall  dwell  therein,  and  shall  say,  I  will  set  a  king  over  me, 
like  as  all  the  nations  that  are  about  me,  thou  shall  in  any  wise  set 
him  king  over  thee,  whom  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  choose.2  You 
see  here  that  the -selection  (electio^jsLAhe  Jang  is  attributed  to 
-  (jodjLthe  investment  to  the  people.  .  .  .  The  elders  of  Israel, 
representing  the  whole  body  of  the  people  .  .  .  came  together 
at  Ramah  to  meet  Samuel;  and,  wearied  of  the  sons  of  Samuel, 
who  were  unjust  judges,  and  believing  that  they  could  by  this 
means  wage  war  more  successfully,  demanded  a  king  of  Samuel. 
When  Samuel  asked  counsel  of  the  Lord,  He  made  known  that 
he  had  chosen  Saul  to  rule  over  the  people.  Samuel,  therefore 
anointed  Saul.  ...  It  might  perhaps  have  seemed  sufficient 
if  Samuel  had  presented  to  the  people  the  king  chosen  by  God, 
and  admonished  them  to  be  obedient  to  him.  Nevertheless,  in 

1  The  translations  are  made  from  the  edition  of  1595,  bound  with  a  Latin 
version  of  Machiavelli's  Prince.    At  some  points  assistance  has  been  derived 
from  an  anonymous  English  translation  of  1689;  this  translation  is,  on  the 
whole,  crude,  and  is  frequently  incorrect. 

All  of  the  selections  are  from  the  third  part  of  the  work  (pp.  73-183  of  the 
edition  of  1595). 

2  Deuteronomy,  xvii.  14-15. 


208  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

order  that  the  king  might  know  that  he  was  established  by  the 
people,  Samuel  ordered  an  a  ^tnblage  of  the  people  at  Mizpeh, 
and  there — as  if  the  matter  nad  not  already  been  determined, 
and  the  election  of  Saul  not  already  settled — the  lot  was  cast  and 
fell,  first  upon  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  then  upon  the  family  of 
Matri,  and  finally  upon  Saul — the  one  whom  God  had  chosen. 
Then  by  acclamation  of  all  the  people  Saul  was  declared  the  ap- 
pointed king.  Finally — lest  he  should  attribute  all  these  things 
to  chance — after  he  had  given  some  proof  of  his  valor  in  relieving 
Jabesh  Gilead  from  the  siege  of  the  Ammonites,  he  was  again 
in  full  assembly  at  Gilgal  (a  few  dissenting  to  no  purpose)  con- 
firmed king  before  God.  You  see  thus  that  he  whom  God  had 
chosen  and  chance  had  selected  from  all  the  rest,  was  established 
as  king  by  the  suffrages  of  the  people.  | 

In  a  word,  all  kings  were  in  the  beginning  elected.  Those  who 
to-day  appear  to  accede  to  their  kingdoms  by  inheritance  were 
necessarily  first  established  by  the  people.  Although  the  people 
of  certain  countries  are  accustomed  to  choose  their  kings  from  a 
particular  stock  on  account  of  its  peculiar  merits,  nevertheless,  it 
is  the  stock  and  not  the  branch  that  they  choose.  Nor  do  they 
so  choose  but  that  if  that  stock  should  degenerate  they  may  select 
another.  Those  who  are  next  in  line  for  the  kingship  are  not  born 
kings;  they  rather  become  such:  they  are  not  deemed  kings  so 
much  as  candidates  for  the  kingship. 

2.     The  Superiority  of  the  People  to  the  King 

Now  since  kings  are  established  by  the  people,  it  seems  to  follow 
certainly  that  the  whole  body  of  the  people  are  superior  to  the 
dng.  For  it  is  evident  that  he  who  is  established  by  another  is 
accounted  less  than  he  that  has  established  him,  and  that  he  who 
receives  his  authority  from  another  is  inferior  to  him  from  whom 
he  derives  his  authority.  Potiphar,  the  Egyptian,  thus  estab- 
lished Joseph  above  all  his  household;  Nebuchadnezzar,  Daniel 
over  the  province  of  Babylon;  Darius,  the  hundred  and  twenty 
governors  over  his  kingdom.  Masters  are  said  to  establish  their 
servants;  kings,  their  ministers.  In  like  manner  the  people 
establish  the  king  as  minister  of  the  commonwealth.  This  name 
good  kings  have  not  disdained,  and  bad  ones  have  affected  it. 
Wherefore  for  several  generations  no  Roman  emperor  (save 
perhaps  some  manifest  tyrant,  as  Nero,  Domitian,  or  Caligula) 
wished  to  be  called  lord  (dominus).  Moreover,  it  is  clear  that 


VINDICI^E  CONTRA  TYRANNOS  209 

kings  were  instituted  for  the  benefit  of  the  people.  You  could 
not  say  that  for  the  sake  of  some  hundred  men,  inferior  to  most  of 
the  rest  of  the  community,  the  whole  community  was  created; 
rather  that  the  former  were  created  for  the  latter.  Reason 
requires  that  he  on  whose  account  another  exists  should  be  deemed 
superior  to  that  other.  Thus  for  the  sake  of  the  ship  the  owner 
appoints  a  pilot,  who  sits  at  the  helm  to  see  that  she  be  not  dashed 
to  pieces  upon  the  rocks  or  follow  the  wrong  course.  Relying 
upon  him  in  that  work,  the  others  serve  him;  even  the  owner 
obeys  him.  Nevertheless,  the  pilot  is  but  a  servant  of  the  ship, 
differing  from  the  common  drudges  only  in  type  of  work.  In  the  . 
commonwealth  the  king  has  the  place  of  pilot,  the  people  that  of » 
owner.  As  long  as  the  king  is  regardful  of  the  public  good  the 
people  properly  submit  to  him,  yet  in  such  a  way  that  he  is  es- 
teemed, as  he  should  be,  the  servant  of  the  commonwealth,  in 
the  same  capacity  as  a  judge  or  tribune  who  differs  from  the  rest 
of  the  people  only  in  the  respect  that  he  is  expected  to  have 
greater  burdens  and  expose  himself  to  greater  dangers.  Where- 
fore, that  which  the  king  acquires  through  war,  as  when  he 
occupies  territory  by  right  of  conquest,  or  through  payments 
into  the  fiscus  in  the  administration  of  justice,  he  acquires  not 
for  himself,  but  for  the  kingdom — that  is,  for  the  people  who 
have  established  the  kingdom,  just  as  a  servant  makes  acquisitions 
for  his  master.  Nor  can  any  obligation  be  contracted  with  the 
king  save  by  the  authorization  of  the  people. 

Moreover,  there  are  many  peoples  who  live  without  a  king; 
a  king  without  a  people,  however,  you  cannot  imagine.  .  .  .  And 
why  are  kings  said  to  have  innumerable  eyes  and  ears,  long  heads, 
and  exceptionally  swift  feet?  Because  they  are  similar  to  Argus, 
Gerion,  Midas  and  others  represented  in  legend?  Not  at  all.  It 
is  because  the  people  concerned  lend  to  the  king  their  eyes  and 
ears,  their  strength  and  their  faculties,  for  the  use  of  the  common- 
wealth. Let  the  people  withdraw  from  the  king,  and  he  who 
seemed  of  good  sight  and  hearing,  robust  and  vigorous,  will  grow 
blind  and  deaf,  and  will  suddenly  collapse;  he  who  just  now 
triumphed  in  his  magnificence,  in  one  instant  becomes  most  con- 
temptible of  all;  he  who  has  honors  almost  divine  is  compelled 
to  play  the  schoolmaster  at  Corinth.  .  .  .  Since,  therefore,  the  king 
exists  through,  and  for  the  sake  of,  the  people,  and  without  the 
people  cannot  stand,  who  will  wonder  at  our  conclusion  that  the 
people  are  greater  than  the  king? 

Now  what  we  have  said  concerning  the  whole  body  of  the  people 
we  wish  also  to  be  said  concerning  those  who  in  every  kingdom  or 


210  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

city  lawfully  represent  the  body  of  the  people,  and  who  are  com- 
monly deemed  officers  of  the  kingdom  and  not  of  the  king.  For 
officers  of  the  king  are  created  and  discharged  by  him  at  his  pleas- 
ure, and  when  he  is  dead  they  no  longer  have  any  authority;  they 
are  themselves  counted  as  dead.  Officers  -of  the  kingdom,  on  the 
other  hand,  receive  their  authority  from  the  people  (at  any  rate 
they  were  formerly  accustomed  so  to  do)  in  public  assembly,  and 
can  be  discharged  only  by  that  same  power.  The  former,  there- 
fore, depend  upon  the  king,  the  latter  upon  the  kingdom:  the  form- 
er should  be  responsible  to  the  supreme  officer  of  the  kingdom — to 
the  king;  the  latter,  to  the  supreme  sovereign — the  people,  upon 
whom  the  king  himself,  and  through  him  his  officers,  must  depend. 
The  function  of  the  former  is  to  guard  the  king;  of  the  latter,  to 
see  that  no  harm  befalls  the  commonwealth.  The  former  are  to 
aid  and  serve  the  king,  as  domestic  servants  of  a  master;  the  latter 
are  to  preserve  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  people  and  to  take 
diligent  care  that  the  king  commit  or  omit  nothing  to  their  damage. 
In  fine,  the  former  are  ministers,  servants,  domestics  of  the  king, 
instituted  only  to  obey  him.  The  latter,  as  associates  of  the  king 
in  the  administration  of  justice  and  as  partakers  of  royal  authority, 
are  bound,  like  the  king  himself,  to  administer  the  affairs  of  the 
commonwealth;  he,  as  chief  among  them,  holds  first  place  only 
in  degree.  As  the  whole  people  is  superior  to  the  king,  so  their 
representatives,  though  individually  inferior  to  him,  should  in  the 
aggregate  be  counted  superior  to  him. 

We  must  now  inquire  why  kings  were  established  in  the  first 
instance  and  what  was  their  principal  duty.  For  a  thing  is  es- 
teemed good  only  when  it  fulfils  the  purpose  for  which  it  was 
instituted.  In  the  jfirst  place,  it  is  clear  that  men  by  nature  free, 
impatient  of  servitude,  born  rather  to  command  than  to  obey, 
would  not,  save  for  the  sake  of  some  great  profit,  have  chosen 
subjection  to  another  and  have  renounced  their  own  natural  right, 
so  to  speak,  to  submit  to  the  right  of  another.  .  .  .  Nor  let  us  think 
that  kings  were  chosen  to  convert  to  their  own  uses  the  goods 
obtained  by  the  sweat  of  the  many;  for  everyone  loves  and  cher- 
ishes his  own.  Nor  were  they  created  that  they  might  squander 
the  public  power  to  their  own  pleasure;  for  ordinarily  any  one 
hates,  or  at  least  envies,  his  superior.  iThey  were  established  to 
protect  individuals  from  each  other  by  the  administration  of 
justice,  and  to  defend  all  from  dangers  from  without  by  repelling 
force  with  force.  Wherefore  'Augustine  says  that  those  who  care 
for  the  interests  of  others  are  properly  said  to  rule,  as  the  husband 


VINDICIM  CONTRA   TYRANNOS  211 

rules  the  wife,  or  parents  their  children.  Those  whose  interests 
are  cared  for  are  said  to  obey ;  although  those  who  thus  rule  really 
serve  those  whom  they  are  said  to  command;  for,  as  Augustine 
also  says,  they  command  not  for  the  sake  of  ruling  but  because 
of  their  duty  to  care  for  their  charge ;  not  for  the  glory  of  domina- 
tion, but  out  of  pity  to  guard  those  committed  to  their  protection. 
Seneca  in  his  ninety-first  epistle  says:  " In  the  golden  age  govern- 
ment was  in  the  hands  of  the  wise.  These  repressed  violence 
and  protected  the  weak  from  the  strong.  They  persuaded  and 
dissuaded  and  pointed  out  what  was  useful  and  what  harmful. 
When  anything  was  needed  their  wisdom  supplied  it.  Their 
valor  warded  off  dangers,  and  increased  and  enriched  the  people. 
Their  function  was  to  govern,  not  to  reign.  No  man  tried  to  see 
what  he  could  do  against  them,  for  each  received  from  them  all 
that  he  was  capable  of  assimilating. "  To  govern,  then,  is  simply 
to  give  counsel.  The  only  end  of  government  is  the  good  of  the 
people.  The  sole  duty  of  governors  and  kings  is  to  take  care  of 
the  people.  Royal  dignity  is,  properly  speaking,  not  an  honor, 
but  a  burden;  not  a  privilege,  but  a  calling;  not  an  immunity,  but 
a  duty;  not  a  license,  but  a  public  service.  Some  honor  indeed  is 
attached  to  the  office;  one  would  hardly  be  willing  to  partake  of 
such  troubles  unless  they  were  flavored  with  some  relish  of  honor. 
The  common  saying  is  true  that  if  every  one  knew  with  how  great 
annoyances  the  royal  diadem  was  wreathed  no  one  would  pick  it 
up  if  he  found  it  at  his  feet  along  the  wayside. 

When  the  words  "mine"  and  "  thine"  had  entered  into  the  world 
and  conflicts  arose  among  citizens  concerning  ownership  of  things, 
and  between  neighboring  peoples  over  boundaries,  it  became  cus- 
tomary to  have  recourse  to  some  one  who  would  justly  and  effec- 
tively see  that  the  poor  suffered  no  violence  from  the  rich,  or  the 
whole  people  from  their  neighbors.  When  such  contests  and 
wars  became  more  violent  a  permanent  choice  was  made  of  ^some 
one  for  whose  valor  and  diligence  all  had  high  regard.  tThus 
kings  were  first  established  to  administer  justice  at  home  and  lead 
the  army  abroad.  .  .  .  Kings  were  ordained  by  God  and  estab- 
lished by  the  people  for  the  benefit  of  the  citizens.  This  benefit 
consists  principally  in  two  things — in  the  maintenance  of  justice 
among  individuals  and  of  security  against  enemies. 

We  must  proceed  a  little  further.  Does  the  king,  because  he 
presides  in  the  administration  of  justice,  administer  justice  accord- 
ing to  his  own  free  will?  Does  the  king  depend  on  law,  or  law  on 
the  king?  .  .  .  Pau^anias  the  Spartan  answers  in  a  word:  " Au- 
thority pertains  to  laws  as  against  men,  not  to  men  as  against 


212  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

laws." l  .  .  .  We  must  carry  the  matter  further  yet.  Since  the 
people  were  seeking  justice  through  law,  if  this  could  be  ob- 
tained from  a  single  good  and  just  man,  they  were  satisfied  with 
him.  But  this  was  hardly  possible,  and  indeed  rarely  happened. 
In  fact  as  long  as  the  judgments  of  kings  were  received  as  the 
equivalent  of  laws  it  turned  out  that  certain  things  were  declared 
as  laws  at  one  time  and  others  at  another  time.  It  thus  became 
the  function  of  magistrates  and  other  wise  men  to  discover,  as  it 
were,  laws  which  could  speak  with  one  and  the  same  voice  to  all 
men.  Kings  were  then  intrusted  with  the  duty  of  guarding, 
administering  and  conserving  laws.  And  because  laws  were  not 
capable  of  providing  in  advance  for  every  contingency,  kings  might 
determine  certain  cases  by  the  same  natural  equity  from  which 
the  laws  themselves  were  derived.  But  lest  in  these  cases  the 
kings  should  do  violence  to  the  law,  those  superior  men  (optimates), 
concerning  whom  we  have  just  spoken,  were  soon  associated  with 
the  kings  by  the  people. 

t  Kings  themselves  should  be  obedient  to  law  and  acknowledge 
(  it  as  their  superior.  . . .  Nor  should  they  consider  that  they  govern 
any  the  less  because  they  submit  to  law.  For  law  is  a  kind  of 
instrument  by  means  of  which  human  societies  are  best  ruled 
and  directed  to  a  happy  end.  Wherefore  kings  were  foolish  who 
should  think  it  base  to  yield  to  law,  just  as  a  geometrician  would 
be  who  should  consider  it  unbecoming  to  use  the  rule  and  other 
instruments  ordinarily  employed  by  those  most  expert  in  making 
measurements,  or  as  a  mariner  would  be  who  would  prefer  to 
wander  recklessly  rather  than  direct  the  course  of  his  ship  by  the 
nautical  compass.  Who  will  hestitate  to  say  that  it  is  more 
expedient  and  honorable  to  obey  the  law  rather  than  a  man? 
Law  is  the  soul  of  the  good  king;  in  it  is  his  inspiration,  feeling, 
and  life.  The  king  is  the  organ  of  the  law,  the  body  through 
which  the  law  exercises  its  power,  fulfils  its  function  and  expresses 
Ots  meaning.  Now  it  is  more  reasonable  to  obey  the  soul  than  the 
body.  Law  is  the  concentrated  reason  and  wisdom  of  many 
sages.  The  many  are  more  clear-sighted  and  far-seeing  than  the 
one;  it  is,  therefore,  safer  to  follow  the  law  than  a  man,  however 
perspicacious  he  may  be.  Law  is  reason  or  intelligence  unper- 
turbed, and  free  from  the  influence  of  anger,  cupidity,  hate,  or  preju- 
dice; nor  is  it  deflected  by  tears  or  threats.  Man,  on  the  other 
hand,  however  well  endowed  with  reason,  is  seized  and  overcome 
by  wrath,  vengeance  and  other  passions;  he  IT  so  disturbed  by 
these  emotions  that  he  is  not  master  of  himself;  he  is  compounded 
1  Cicero,  De  Officiis,  lib.  2. 


-,  ^ 
fif? 


VINDICIM  CONTRA  TYRANNOS  213 

of  reason  and  passion,  and  he  cannot  always  prevent  the  latter 
from  gaining  the  upper  hand.  .  .  .  Law  is  the  coalescence  of  a 
multitude  of  minds;  and  mind  is  a  parcel  of  the  divine  spirit;  so 
that  he  who  obeys  the  law  seems  to  obey  God  and  to  make  Him 
his  judge. 

3.     The  Contractual  Basis  of  Royal  Authority 

We  have  said  that  in  establishing  a  king  a  two-fold  pact  was 
entered  into:  the  oj&e,  concerning  which  we  have  already  spoken, 
between  God,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  king  and  people,  on  the 
other;  the  other,  between  the  king  and  the  people.  We  must 
take  up  the  latter  now.  After  Saul  was  appointed  the  royal  law 
was  delivered  to  him,  according  to  which  he  was  to  govern.  David, 
also,  in  Hebron  made  a  covenant  in  the  presence  of  the  Lord  — 
that  is,  God  being  present  as  witness  —  with  the  elders  of  Israel, 
who  represented  the  whole  people;  after  that  he  was  anointed 
king.  .  .  .  Likewise  Josias  promised  to  observe  the  commandments, 
testimonies  and  precepts  comprised  in  the  book  of  the  covenant; 
by  these  words  are  to  be  understood  the  laws,  which  relate  now  to 
piety,  now  to  justice.  In  all  of  these  passages  the  covenant  is 
said  to  have  been  made  with  all  the  people,  or  with  the  entire 
multitude,  all  the  elders,  or  all  the  men  of  Judea:  whence  we 
know  that  not  only  the  chiefs  of  the  tribes  but  also  the  captains, 
centurions  and  inferior  magistrates,  were  present,  representing 
the  towns,  so  that  all  might  individually  covenant  with  the  king. 

In  this  pact  it  was  a  matter  of  creating  a  king;  for  the  people 
made  the  king,  not  vice  versa.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  in  this 
contract  the  people  had  the  part  of  stipulator,  the  king  that  of 
promisor.  And  the  part  of  stipulator  is  deemed  the  more  advan- 
tageous  at  law.  The  people,  as  stipulator,  ask  the  king  whether 
he  will  govern  justly  and  according  to  the  laws;  the  king  promises 
that  he  will.  The  people  then  respond  that  they  will  faithfully 
obey  him  while  he  governs  justly.  The  king,  therefore,  promises/ 
absolutely,  the  people  conditionally  ;  if  the  condition  is  not  fulfilled 
the  people  are  lawfully  absolved  from  every  obligation.  In  the 
first  covenant  or  contract  there  is  an  obligation  to  piety,  in  the 
second,  to  justice.  In  the  former,  the  king  promises  dutifully 
to  obey  God,  In  the  latter,  that  he  will  rule  the  people  justly;  in 
the  one  that  he  will  provide  for  the  glory  of  God,  in  the 
other,  that  he  will  secure  the  welfare  of  the  people.  In  the 
first  contract  the  condition  is  —  if  you  observe  my  law;  in  the  second 
—  if  you  render  to  each  his  due.  Failure  to  fulfil  the  first  pact 


214  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

is  duly  punished  by  God;  failure  to  fulfil  the  second  is  legitimately  y 
punishable  by  the  whole  people  or  by  those  magistrates  whose/ 
function  it  is  to  protect  the  people.  .  .  . 

Why  is  it  that  the  king  swears  first,  the  people  stipulating, 
unless  it  is  that  he  thereby  accepts  a  condition,  tacitly  or  expressly? 
And  why  is  a  condition  attached  to  a  contract  unless  it  be  that 
if  the  condition  be  not  fulfilled  the  contract  is  by  that  fact  abro- 
gated by  law?  And  if  through  non-observance  of  the  condition 
a  contract  is  made  null  at  law,  who  will  call  that  people  perjured 
who  refuse  obedience  to  the  king  when  he  disregards  the  condition 
which  he  is  obligated  and  able  to  fulfil  and  violates  the  law  to  which 
he  has  sworn?  On  the  other  hand,  who  would  not  regard  such  a 
perjured  and  perfidious  king  as  unworthy  of  his  office?  1£he  law 
frees  a  vassal  from  his  bond  of  fealty  to  a  lord  who  has  committed 
a  felony  upon  him,  although  the  lord  takes  no  oath  of  fealty  to 
the  vassal,  but  only  the  vassal  to  the  lord;  the  law  of  the  Twelve 
Tables  holds  criminal  an  advocate  who  has  dealt  fraudulently  with 
his  client;  the  civil  law  permits  a  freedman  to  bring  an  action 
against  his  patron  for  any  grievous  injury,  and  under  similar 
circumstances  the  same  law  frees  a  slave  from  his  master,  though 
the  obligation  be  natural,  not  civil.  If  all  these  things  are  true, 
is  it  not  even  more  certain  that  the  people  should  be  absolved  from 
the  oath  which  they  have  taken  to  the  king,  if  he,  who  first  swore 
solemnly  to  them,  as  an  agent  to  his  principal,  has  broken  his 
oath? 

Even  if  the  formalities  of  a  contract  have  never  taken  place, 
are  we  not  sufficiently  taught  by  Nature  herself  that  kings  are 
established  by  the  people  with  the  condition  that  they  govern 
well;  judges,  that  they  judge  justly;  military  leaders,  that  they 
lead  forth  the  army  against  the  enemy?  .  .  . 

But,  you  may  ask,  what  if  the  people,  subdued  by  force,  be  com- 
pelled by  a  prince  to  swear  allegiance  according  to  his  own  terms? 
I  reply,  what  if  a  robber,  pirate,  or  tyrant,  with  whom  there  is 
considered  to  be  no  bond  of  justice,  should,  with  uplifted  sword, 
extort  a  promissory  note  from  any  one?  Is  it  not  well  known  that 
a  prorjaise  exacted  by  violence  does  not  bind,  especially  if  anything 
is  promised  against  good  morals  or  contrary  to  the  law  of  nature? 
What  is  more  repugnant  to  nature  than  that  the  people  should 
fasten  their  own  chains  and  shackles?  or  that  they  should  promise 
the  king  to  throw  themselves  upon  the  sword  or  lay  violent  hands 
upon  themselves?  There  is,  therefore,  between  king  and  people 
a  mutual  obligation  which,  whether  it  be  civil  or  natural,  tacit  or 
express,  cannot  be  abrogated  by  agreement,  violated  by  any  law,  - 


VINDICIM  CONTRA  TYRANNOS  215 

or  rescinded  by  force.  So  great  is  the  strength  of  this  obligation 
that  the  prince  who  contumaciously  violates  it  may  be  truly 
called  a  tyrant,  and  the  people  who  wilfully  break  it,  seditious. 

4.     The  Right  of  Resistance  to  Tyrants 

Hitherto  we  have  treated  of  kings.  It  now  remains  for  us  to 
describe  somewhat  more  accurately  the  tyrant.  We  have  said 
that  the  king  is  he  who  rules  and  governs  a  kingdom,  acceding  to 
his  position  either  through  heredity  or  through  election  confirmed 
by  the  appropriate  rites.  Jn  contradistinction  to  this  it  follows 
that  he  is  a  tyrant  who  either  has  seized  the  government  by  civil 
means  or,  invested  therewith  in  regular  manner,  rules  contrary 
to  right  and  justice  and  in  violation  of  the  laws  and  pacts  to  which 
he  has  solemnly  bound  himself.  Both  characters  of  tyrant  may 
inhere  in  one  and  the  same  person.  The  former  is  commonly 
called  the  tyrant  without  title  (tyrannus  absque  titulo),  the  latter 
the  tyrant  by  practice  (tyrannus  exercitio) .  It  may  easily  come  to 
pass  that  he  who  gains  a  kingdom  by  violence  should  rule  justly, 
or  that  he  upon  whom  a  kingdom  descends  lawfully  should  rule 
unjustly.  Inasmuch  as  the  kingship  is  a  law-created  right  rather 
than  inherited  property,  an  office  (functio)  rather  than  a  possession, 
he  would  seem  more  deserving  of  the  name  of  tyrant  who  performs 
his  duty  badly  than  he  who  enters  upon  his  duty  in  irregular 
manner.  .  .  . 

Now  at  last  we  have  come  by  degrees  to  the  principal  point 
of  our  question.  We  have  seen  in  what  manner  kings  have  been 
chosen  by  God  and  installed  by  the  people;  what  tasks  the  king 
and  the  officers  of  the  kingdom  are  under  duty  to  perform;  how 
great  power  is  allowed  the  king,  and  how  far  the  function  and 
authority  of  the  officers  extend;  what  and  how  sacred  are  the 
covenants  that  are  made  in  the  installation  of  the  king,  and  what 
conditions,  tacit  or  express,  are  intermixed  therewith;  finally, 
who  is  a  tyrant  without  .title,  and  who  a  tyrant  by  practice. 
Seeing  that  it  is  unquestionable  that  to  the  lawful  king  who 
discharges  well  his  duty  to  God  and  the  people  obedience  should 
be  rendered  as  to  God,  it  remains  now  for  us  to  determine  whether, 
by  whom,  and  by  what  means  a  tyrant  may  be  lawfully  resisted. 
And  we  must  speak  first  of  him  who  is  commonly  called  a  tyrant 
without  title.  .  .  . 

In  the  first  place,  the  law  of  nature  teaches  us  to  preserve  and 
defend  our  life  and  our  liberty — without  which  life  is  hardly 
worth  while,  against  every  violence  and  wrong.  Nature  has 


216  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

implanted  this  instinct  in  dogs  against  wolves,  in  bulls  against 
lions,  in  doves  against  hawks,  in  young  fowl  against  kites,  and 
yet  more  strongly  in  man  against  man  himself  when  a  man  be- 
comes a  wolf  to  his  fellow-man.  Therefore,  he  whq_cjuestions 
whether  it  is  permissible  to  resist  seems  to  contend  with  Nature 
herself.  The  law  of  nations  teaches  the  same:  by  this  dominions 
are  defined  and  boundaries  established  which  everyone  is  obli- 
gated to  defend  against  all  invaders.  It  is  thus  no  less  lawful 
to  resist  Alexander  when,  without  right  and  provoked  by  no 
wrong,  he  invades  a  country  with  a  powerful  fleet,  than  to  resist 
Diomedes,  the  pirate,  when  he  with  one  vessel  renders  dangerous 
the  sea.  In  such  case  Alexander  surpasses  Diomedes  not  in  his 
right  but  only  in  his  security  from  punishment.  It  is  as  proper 
to  oppose  Alexander  in  ravaging  the  country  as  a  footpad  in 
purloining  a  clock,  or  a  man  who  would  subvert  the  city  by  trick- 
ery as  a  robber  who  would  break  into  a  private  house. 

Furthermore,  there  is  a  civil  law  whereby  societies  of  men  are 
established  under  a  fixed  system,  some  being  governed  in  one 
manner,  some  in  another.  Thus  some  are  ruled  by  one  or  a  few, 
others  by  the  people  as  a  whole;  some  exclude  women  from  the 
government,  others  admit  them;  some  choose  their  kings  from 
a  single  family,  others  select  them  promiscuously.  If  any  one 
attempts  to  violate  this  law  by  force  or  fraud  we  are  all  bound 
to  resist  him,  because  he  wrongs  society,  to  which  he  owes  every- 
thing, and  would  undermine  his  country,  to  which  we  are  devoted 
by  nature,  law,  and  solemn  oath;  if  we  neglect  this  duty  we  are 
traitors  to  our  country,  deserters  from  human  society,  contemners 
of  the  law. 

As  thus  the  law  of  .nature,  the  law  of  nations,  and  civil  Jaw 
command  us  to  take  arms  against  tyrants,  no  other  reason  can 
properly  dissuade  us.  No  oath  or  other  pact,  public  or  private, 
interposes  to  prevent  us.  It  is,  therefore,  permitted  to  any  private 
person  to  eject  an  intruding  tyrant.  Nor  does  the  Julian  law  of 
treason  which  punishes  those  who  rebel  against  their  country 
or  prince,  apply  here.  For  he  is  no  prince  who  without  lawful 
title  invades  the  commonwealth  or  confines  of  another,  nor  he  a 
rebel  who  defends  his  country  with  arms.  ...  To  as  little  pur- 
pose can  the  laws  of  sedition  be  adduced  here.  He  is  seditious  who 
undertakes  to  sustain  the  people  in  resisting  public  discipline. 
But  he  who  restrains  the  subverter  of  the  country  and  of  public 
discipline  does  not  create  sedition;  he  prevents  it.  .  .  . 

What  we  have  said  has  been  about  the  tyrant  in  the  process 
of  becoming  such,  when  he  is  devising  and  laying  his  plots.  But 


VINDICI&  CONTRA  TYRANNOS  217 

suppose  that  after  he  is  possessed  of  the  commonwealth  the  people, 
having  been  overcome,  bind  themselves  to  him  by  oath,  or  that 
the  commonwealth,  having  been  subdued,  transfer  authority  to 
him,  and  the  kingdom  formally  consent  to  the  change  of  their  law; 
then  indeed,  inasmuch  as  he  has  acquired  the  title  which  he  lacked 
before,  he  seems  to  be  in  possession  dejure.  Though  the  yoke 
was  laid  upon  the  people  by  compulsion,  it  is  nevertheless  just 
that  they  submit  and  acquiesce  peacefully  in  the  will  of  God  who 
at  His  pleasure  transfers  kingdoms  from  one  to  another.  Other- 
wise there  would  be  no  government  whose  authority  might  not 
be  questioned.  Moreover,  it  may  happen  that  he,  who  was 
before  a  tyrant  without  title,  having  acquired  title,  should  gov- 
ern lawfully  and  not  practise  tyranny.  Thus  the  Jewish  people, 
under  the  guidance  of  the  king,  lawfully  resisted  Sennacherib, 
king  of  the  Assyrians,  when  he  invaded  Palestine.  On  the  other 
hand,  Zedekiah  and  all  the  people  were  condemned  and  punished 
because,  after  having  sworn  fealty  to  Nebuchadnezzar,  they 
revolted,  though  they  had  suffered  no  wrong  from  him.  When 
faith  has  once  been  given  there  is  no  longer  opportunity  for 
repentance.  Though  every  man  in  a  battle  ought  to  fight  with 
all  his  valor,  yet  when  he  is  captured  and  has  taken  the  oath 
of  loyalty  he  is  bound  to  keep  it.  Likewise  the  people  should 
contend  with  all  vigor  to  retain  their  own  rights  (jura) ;  but  when 
they  have  surrendered,  willingly  or  unwillingly,  to  the  right  of 
another,  they  should  with  an  even  mind  endure  the  government 
\pf  the  victor.  .  .  . 

Concerning  those  who  practise  tyranny,  whether  having  first 
acquired  their  authority  lawfully  or  by  force,  it  is  important  for 
us  to  make  careful  examination.  In  the  finrt  place,  we  should 
consider  that  all  princes  are  born  men  and  that  their  reason  can 
as  little  be  made  free  from  passion  as  the  mind  can  be  separated 
from  the  body.  Therefore,  we  should  not  hope  to  have  only  per- 
fect princes;  ^ejshotdd  rather  deem  ourselves  fortunate  if  we 
find  mediocre  ones.  If  in  certain  cases  the  prince  does  not  ob- 
serve moderation,  if  now  and  then  he  does  not  yield  to  reason, 
if  he  looks  carelessly  to  the  public  welfare,  if  he  becomes  less 
diligent  in  administration  of  justice  or  less  zealous  in  warding 
off  war,  he  must  not  forthwith  be  called  a  tyrant.  For  he  rules 
not  as  man  over  beasts  or  God  over  men,  but  as  a  man  born,  of 
the  same  condition  as  other  men.  And  as  a  prince  would  be 
considered  arrogant  who  sought  to  abuse  men  as  if  they  were 
beasts,  so  the  people  are  unjust  if  they  expect  a  jgod_  in  a  prince 
or  look  for  divinity  in  his  imperfect  nature.  But  if  he  deliberately 


218  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

upsets  the  commonwealth,  if  he  wantonly  perverts  lawful  rights, 
or  has  no  regard  for  oaths  and  covenants,  for  justice  or  piety, 
then  indeed  he  should  be  adjudged  a  tyrant — that  is,  an  enemy  of 
God  and  man.  We  are  thus  speaking  not  of  the  prince  less  good, 
but  of  the  absolutely  bad;  not  of  one  less  wise,  but  of  one  who  is 
malicious  and  treacherous;  not  of  him  who  is  ignorant  of  the  law, 
but  of  the  contemner  of  law;  not  of  an  unwarlike  prince,  but  of  a 
prince  who  is  enemy  of  the  people  and  ravager  of  the  kingdom. 
The  weak  prince  might  be  disposed  to  employ  the  wisdom  of  the 
senate,  the  praetor's  knowledge  of  the  law,  the  tribune's  military 
skill;  but  the  tyrant  would  be  happy  if  the  nobility,  the  senators 
and  the  commanders  had  only  one  neck  which  he  might  take  off 
with  one  blow,  for  no  others  does  he  regard  with  more  hatred 
than  these.  Although  the  weak  prince  might  rightly  be  deposed, 
nevertheless  he  can  be  endured;  but  the  longer  the  tyrant  is 
tolerated  the  more  insufferable  he  becomes. 

It  is  not  always  expedient  for  the  people  to  do  that  which 
they  may  lawfully  do.  It  often  happens  that  a  remedy  which  is 
applied  is  worse  than  the  disease.  So  it  becomes  prudent  for  men 
to  try  all  means  before  taking  up  the  sword.  If  those  who  repre- 
sent the  people  perceive  that  anything  is  being  done,  through 
force  or  fraud,  against  the  common  weal,  they  should  at  once 
admonish  the  prince,  not  waiting  until  the  evil  becomes  graver 
and  acquires  greater  strength.  For  tyranny  is  like  a  hectic 
fever,  which,  at  first  easily  cured  but  detected  with  difficulty, 
later  becomes  easily  recognizable  but  almost  incurable.  There- 
fore, the  representatives  should  withstand  the  prince,  and  not 
suffer  the  smallest  beginning  of  tyranny  to  be  made.  If  the 
prince  persists  in  his  tyrannous  course  and,  though  often  ad- 
monished, does  not  reform  but  endeavors  to  bring  matters  to 
the  point  where  he  may  with  impunity  do  whatever  he  pleases, 
then  indeed  the  crime  of  tyranny  is  complete,  and  whatever  may 
be  done,  through  the  law  or  through  just  resistance,  against  a 
tyrant,  can  be  done  against  him.  For  tyranny  is  not  a  crime 
merely,  but  the  chiefest,  and,  as  it  were,  the  epitome  of  all  crimes. 
The  tyrant  subverts  the  commonwealth,  pillages  every  one  and 
lays  snares  for  their  lives,  violates  any  promise,  despising  the 
sanctity  of  a  solemn  oath.  Therefore,  he  is  as  much  more  vicious 
than  the  ordinary  bandit,  murderer  or  oath-breaker,  as  it  is  more 
serious  to  offend  against  the  many  or  all  than  against  particular 
individuals.  If  these  private  offences  are  deemed  infamous  and 
are  punishable  by  death,  is  it  possible  to  devise  a  penalty  worthy 
of  a  crime  so  atrocious  as  tyranny? 


VINDICI&  CONTRA  TYRANNOS  219 

Moreover,  we  have  already  proved  that  kings  receive  their 
royal  dignity  from  the  people,  that  the  whole  people  are  greater^ 
than  and  superior  to  the  king,  and  that  the  king  or  emperor  is 
merely  the  highest  minister  and  agent  of  the  kingdom  or  empire. 
It  follows  that  the  tyrant  commits  a  felony  against  the  people — 
the  lord  of  the  fief;  he  is  guilty  of  treason  against  the  kingdom  or 
empire;  he  is  a  rebel.  He  has  thus  violated  the  same  laws  that 
the  ordinary  criminal  violates  and  merits  far  severer  punishment. 
Therefore,  as  Bartolus  says,  he  may  be  either  deposed  by  his 
superior  or  punished  under  the  Julian  law  against  public  violence. 
The  superior  is  the  whole  people,  or  those  who  represent  them — 
the  electors,  palatines,  patricians,  assembly  of  estates,  etc.  If 
the  tyranny  has  proceeded  so.j;ar.tliat-.it  cannot  be  destroyed  save 
by  armed Jforce,  then  it  is  lawful  for  the  representatives  to  call 
the  people  to  arms,  enroll  an  army,  and  employ  not  only  the  valiant 
strength  of  the  nation,  but  even  strategy  and  deceit,  against  the 
enemy  of  their  country.  .  .  .  The  officers  of  the  kingdom  will 
not  thereby  incur  the  charge  of  sedition.  For  in  sedition  two 
opposing  parties  are  necessary — one  pursuing  a  just  course,  the 
other  an  unjust  course.  That  party  is  right  which  defends  the 
laws,  supports  the  common  welfare  and  preserves  the  kingdom. 
That  party  is  wrong  which  violates  laws,  or  protects  violators  of 
law,  and  defends  the  destroyers  of  the  country.  .  .  .(Whatever 
tends  to  the  public  good  is  lawful  Wherefore  Thomas  says 
that  since  tyrannical  government,  established  not  for  the  public 
good  but  for  the  private  good  of  him  who  rules,  is  unjust,  its  over- 
throw does  not  have  the  nature  of  sedition.  Nor  can  the  officers 
of  the  kingdom  be  charged  with  the  crime  of  treason.  This  crime 
may,  on  the  one  hand,  be  committed  against  a  legitimate  prince. 
But  the  prince  is  simply  animate  law.  Therefore,  he  who  seeks 
with  his  utmost  power  to  annihilate  law  cannot  be  called  by  that 
name,  and  those  who  take  up  arms  against  him  cannot  be  accused 
of  treason.  On  the  other  hand,  treason  may  be  committed  against 
the  commonwealth.  But  the  commonwealth  may  be  said  to 
exist  only  so  long  as  the  authority  of  law  is  maintained  and  while 
the  private  pleasure  of  the  ruler  does  not  absorb  the  energies  of 
the  kingdom.  It  is,  therefore,  the  tyrant  who  is  guilty  of  treason 
against  the  commonwealth ;  and  those  who,  relying  upon  their 
own  authority  and  sense  of  duty,  assail  the  tyrant  are  protectors 
of  the  commonwealth.  In  such  case  the  latter  are  acting  not  as 
individuals,  but  as  the  whole  people,  not  as  subjects,  but  as  masters 
demanding  from  their  agent  an  accounting  of  his  work.  .  .  . 

Everywhere  there  is  between  prince  and  people  a  mutual 


220  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

and  reciprocal  obligation:  he  promises  that  he  will  be  a  good  prince; 
the  people  promise  that  if  he  is  such  they  will  obey  him.  The 
people  are  thus  obligated  to  the  princ^.conditionally,  he  to  them 
absolutely.  If  the  condition  be  not  fulfilled,  the  people  are 
released,  the  contract  abrogated,  the  obligation  ipm,,jure  void. 
The  king  is  faithless  if  he  governs  unjustly;  the  people,  if  they 
neglect  to  obey  him  while  he  rules  justly.  The  people  are  entirely 
innocent  of  the  crime  of  perfidy  if  they  publicly  renounce  an  unjust 
ruler  or  endeavor  to  overpower  by  force  of  arms  one  who  without 
lawful  right  attempts  to  hold  the  kingdom. 

It  is  not  merely  permissible  to  the  officers  of  the  kingdom  to 
repress  a  tyrant;  it  is  incumbent  upon  them  as  a  part  of  their 
duty.  If  they  do  not  discharge  this  duty  they  can  plead  no  con- 
tract as  an  excuse.  The  electors,  patricians,  peers  and  other 
nobles  (optimates)  should  not  think  that  they  were  instituted  to 
exhibit  themselves,  clothed  in  their  robes  of  state,  at  the  coronation 
of  the  king,  according  to  the  ancient  custom;  as  if  they  were  acting 
in  a  Greek  interlude,  or  playing  the  parts  of  Roland,  Oliver, 
Renaldo  and  other  stage  personages  representing  the  knights  of 
King  Arthur's  table.  Nor  after  the  assemblage  has  been  dismissed 
should  they  think  that  they  have  fulfilled  their  parts  excellently. 
Such  ceremonies  are  not  intended  to  be  executed  perfunctorily, 
or  designed  for  sport — as  in  children's  games  when,  as  Horace 
describes,  they  make  a  king  in  play.  These  leaders  (optimates) 
should  rather  know  that  they  are  called  to  a  place  of  work  as  well 
as  of  honor,  and  that  the  commonwealth  is  intrusted  to  the  king  as 
its  first  and  principal  guardian  and  to  them  as  co-guardians.  Just 
other  guardians  are  appointed  to  observe  the  acts  of  him  who 
holds  the  place  of  chief  guardian,  to  demand  constant  accounting 
of  his  administration  and  watch  carefully  how  he  acquits  himself 
of  his  charge;  so  likewise  officers  are  appointed  to  watch  the  king 
(who  is  master  only  in  the  sense  of  having  the  care  of  a  ward), 
to  see  that  he  does  nothing  to  the  detriment  of  the  people.  The 
conduct  of  the  principal  guardian  is  imputed  to  the  co-guardians 
if,  when  they  ought  and  can,  they  do  not  discover  his  fault,  es- 
pecially where  he  neglects  to  communicate  the  affairs  of  adminis- 
tration to  them,  or  executes  his  guardianship  faithlessly,  or 
practises  deceit,  acts  selfishly  or  ruinously  for  his  ward,  or  dis- 
trains anything  from  the  property  of  the  ward;  in  fine,  they  are 
held  to  account  if  he  acts  stupidly,  indifferently  or  unskilfully. 
In  like  manner  the  chief  officers  are  held  responsible  for  the  con- 
duct of  the  king,  if  they  do  not  suppress  tyranny  or  prevent 
its  appearance,  or  supplement  his  inefficiency  by  their  own 


VINDICIAE  CONTRA   TYRANNOS  221 

vigilance  and  industry.  .  .  .  The  commonwealth  is  intrusted 
as  much  to  their  care  as  to  his;  their  commission  is  not  only  that 
they  serve  the  public  interest  through  their  particular  offices,  but 
also  that  they  hold  him  to  his  proper  function.  Both  he  and 
they  have  promised  to  secure  the  welfare  of  the  commonwealth. 
If  he  violates  his  oath  they  are  not  to  imagine  that  they  are  thereby 
absolved  from  their  pledge,  any  more  than  are  bishops  released 
from  their  vows  if  the  Pope  defends  heresy  or  seeks  to  destroy  the 
church.  The  more  the  king  becomes  an  oath-breaker,  the  more 
should  the  officers  consider  themselves  bound  to  keep  their  faith. 
If  they  act  collusively  they  are  to  be  accounted  prevaricators; 
if  they  conspire  with  him,  they  are  deserters  and  traitors;  if  they 
neglect  to  deliver  the  commonwealth  from  tyranny,  they  are__ 
tyrants  themselves.  On  the  other  hand,  if  they  undertake  to 
save  the  commonwealth  and  defend  it  with  all  their  powers,  they 
are  protectors,  guardians,  and,  in  a  sense,  kings  themselves.  ^ 


SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  ch.  ii,  §  I. 
Baudrillart,  /.  Bodin  et  son  temps,  pp.  i-iio. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  ch.  ii,  §  2. 
Armstrong,   "Political  Theory  of    the  Huguenots"  in  English  Historical 

Review,  Vol.  IV  (1889),  pp.  13-40. 

Figgis,  Studies  of  Political  Thought,  from  Gerson  to  Grotius,  pp.  152-158. 
Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  II,  pp.  31-46. 


BODIN 


X.    JEAN  BODIN  (1530-1596) 

INTRODUCTION 

Political  reasoning  in  the  sixteenth  century  was,  in  most  in- 
stances, closely  determined  by  some  current  dispute  or  by  an 
immediate  practical  problem.  Writings  on  questions  of  govern- 
ment were  generally  limited  in  scope,  as  the  Huguenot  pamphlets. 
A  more  extended  work,  like  the  Institutes  of  Calvin,  would  include 
treatment  of  political  subjects  only  as  a  subsidiary  part  of  a 
broader  plan.  But  the  century  furnishes  one  great  political  work, 
which  ranks  with  Aristotle's  Politics  and  Montesquieu's  Spirit 
of  the  Laws  in  range  of  topics  and  wealth  of  detail.  This  is  the 
Six  Books  Concerning  the  State,  by  the  French  writer,  Jean  Bodin. 
This  treatise  is  comprehensive  and  systematic.  Its  principal  doc- 
trines, however,  reflect  contemporary  events  very  truly.  One  pur- 
pose of  the  author  was  to  discover  broad  principles  of  law — prin- 
ciples that  would  disclose  means  of  deliverance  from  the  religious 
and  political  turmoil  of  his  time.  He  sought  also  to  construct  a 
scheme  of  state-theory  which  would  be  applicable  to  such  a  na- 
tional and  territorial  sovereignty  as  was  in  his  lifetime  coming 
steadily  and 'clearly  into  full  strength  in  France.  For  the  task 
which  Bodin  assumed  he  had  training  in  scholarship  and  experi- 
ence. He  had  been  a  student  of  law,  and  then  a  lecturer  on  juris- 
prudence, at  Toulouse.  Later  he  had  been  a  practising  advocate 
in  Paris.  He  was  a  constant  reader  in  the  fields  of  history,  econom- 
ics, and  natural  science;  he  wrote  several  minor  essays  on  fiscal 
questions,  and  an  extended  and  noteworthy  essay  in  the  philos- 
ophy of  history.1  In  public  life  he  was  a  leading  representative 
of  the  third  estate  in  the  States-General  of  Blois  (which  met  in 
*567),  and  was  counsellor  at  the  courts  of  Henry  III  and  Henry 
IV.  Though  a  strong  supporter  of  the  monarch's  authority  in  the 
state,  his  normal  attitude  in  politics  was  that  of  moderate  inde- 
pendence; and  he  advocated  toleration  in  religion.  His  writing 

lMethodus  ad  facilem  Historiarum  Cognitionem  (A  Method  for  the  Easy  Under- 
standing of  History],  published  in  1566. 

225 


226  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

is  fair  in  prevailing  tone;  and  the  wide  range  of  his  historical 
learning  enabled  him  to  give  empirical  form  to  his  expositions. 

Bodin's  most  distinctive  contribution  to  political  theory  is  his 
doctrine  of  sovereignty.  Perhaps  no  single  conception  of  a  political 
philosopher  has  been  so  influential  on  subsequent  theory  as  this 
of  Bodin.  Sovereignty,  according  to  this  definition,  is  that  power, 
in  the  state,  which  is  above  all  limitation  by  positive  law;  it  is 
the  authority  which  is  the  original  source  of  positive  law;  its 
existence  is  the  criterion  of  the  statehood  of  any  given  community. 

The  selections  below,  from  the  Six  Books  Concerning  the  State,1 
contain  the  author's  discussion  of  sovereignty,  and  also  his  pre- 
liminary consideration  of  the  nature  and  end  of  the  state  and  the 
definition  of  citizenship.  Bodin's  theory  of  revolutions  and  his 
interpretation  of  the  influence  of  climate  upon  government  con- 
tribute to  the  importance  of  his  position  in  the  history  of  political 
philosophy;  but  lack  of  space  prevents  the  inclusion  of  passages 
on  those  topics.  The  work  also  comprises,  in  systematic  form, 
enlightened  discussion  of  numerous  minor  topics  relating  to  the 
machinery  and  functions  of  government. 

READINGS  FROM  SIX  BOOKS  CONCERNING  THE  STATE2 

1.     The  Definition  of  the  State  and  of  Citizenship* 
i 

A  state  is  an  association  of  families  and  their  common  posses- 
/  sions,  governed  by  a  supreme  power  and  by  reason.4  We  have 
placed  this  definition,  omitted  by  writers  on  the  state,  at  the 
beginning  of  our  work,  because  it  is  necessary  to  consider  the  final 
stage  of  inherited  enlightenment  and  accomplishment,  before 
anything  else  is  said;  then  when  the  end  has  been  discovered  and 
explored,  we  may  examine  the  stages  through  which  the  goal 
was  reached.  For  a  definition  is  nothing  but  the  conclusion  of 
a  problem  that  is  propounded;6  and  unless  it  rests  upon  a  firm 

1This  work  appeared  first  in  French  (Les  Six  limes  de  la  republique,  1576) 
and  later,  with  extensive  revision,  in  Latin  (De  Republica  Libri  Sex,  1586). 

2  The  passages  are  translated  from  the  Frankfort  edition,  1641,  of  the  Latin 
version.  Assistance  has  been  derived  from  the  earlier  French  version,  and 
also  from  an  English  translation,  by  Richard  Knolles,  1606,  of  the  French 
version. 

8  Passages  from  Bk.  I,  chs.  i  and  vi. 

4  "Respublica  est  familiarum  rerumque  inter  ipsas  cornmunium,  summa 
potestate  ac  ratione  mpderata  multitudo." 

6  "Rei  propositae  finis." 


BODIN  227 

and  stable  foundation,  whatever  you  build  upon  it  will  collapse 
in  one  moment.  .  .  . 

We  first  said  that  a  state  should  be  jregulated  by  reasq^:  for 
the  name  of  state  is  sacred;  wherefore  assemblages  of  pirates 
and  robbers  are  to  be  kept  absolutely  distinct  from  the  state, 
which  should  have  no  legal  or  contractual  association  with  such 
bands.  And  in  all  well  and  wisely  constituted  societies,  whether 
it  be  a  question  of  keeping  faith  and  maintaining  the  public 
safety,  of  entering  into  treaties,  making  war,  regulating  the  boun- 
daries of  the  kingdom,  or  settling  controversies  between  rulers, 
robbers  and  pirates  are  excluded  from  all  social  law.  Those 
who  govern  states  according  to  their  own  laws  and  the  law  of 
nations  have  always  distinguished  their  just  and  lawful  enemies 
from  those  who  strive  to  overthrow  commonwealths  and  subvert 
civil  order.  Wherefore  if  robbers  are  not  paid  the  ransom  agreed 
upon  for  a  captive,  no  fraud  is  committed,  since  they  do  not  share 
the  laws  of  war  nor  enjoy  the  rights  possessed  by  lawful  enemies, 
captive  or  free.1 

The  principles  which  we  have  discussed  in  relation  to  the  house- 
hold, as  a  whole  and  in  its  individual  parts,  contain  the  elements  of 
all  political  society.  And  just  as  the  foundations  of  a  house  can 
stand  by  themselves  before  any  walls  have  risen  above  them, 
so  also  a  household  can  exist  of  itself  without  a  state;  and  the 
master  of  a  house  may  exercise  supreme  power  over  the  members 
ofTrus  household,  without  depending  upon  the  authority  of  another; 
many  such  households  are  said  to  exist  in  Mauretania  and  America. 
But  a  state  without  households  or  a  city  without  walls  and  build- 
ings can  no  more  exist  than  terraces  or  roofs  without  walls  and 
foundations.  When,  therefore,  the  head  of  a  house  goes  forth 
from  the  home,  where  he  holds  domestic  authority,  to  join  with 
other  family  heads  for  the  purpose  of  transacting  their  common 
affairs,  he  then  loses  the  name  of  master  and  lord  and  becomes 
an  associate  and  a  citizen;  in  a  sense,  he  leaves  his  home  to  enter 
the  body  politic,  andQie  transacts  public  instead  of  domestic 
business!]  Indeed  a  citizen  is  no  other  than  a  free  man  who  is 
bound  by  the  supreme  power  of  another.2  For  before  any  state 
or  commonwealth  took  form,  each  pater  familias  had  final  power 
of  life  and  death  over  his  children  and  wives.  Afterwards  strength 
and  the  desire  to  rule,  as  well  as  avarice  and  the  passion  of  revenge, 

1  De  Republica,  pp.  1-2. 

2  "Est  autem  civis  nihil  aliud  quam  liber  homo,  qui  sumrnse  alterius  potes- 
tati  obligatur." 


228  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

armed  one  against  the  other,  and  the  issue  of  war  forced  the  con- 
quered to  serve  the  pleasure  of  the  more  powerful.  He  who 
showed  himself  a  valiant  leader  ruled  then  not  only  over  his  house- 
hold but  also  over  his  enemies  and  allies — the  latter  as  conquered 
friends,  fc)  each  one  of  whom  was  given  freedom  to  live  as  he 
please^  the  former  (his  enemies)  as  slaves.  Thus  that  complete 
liberty" which  is  derived  from  nature,  was  taken  away,  even  from 
the  victors,  by  him  whom  the  latter  had  chosen  as  their  leader; 
at  least  their  liberty  was  diminished;  for  each,  even  in  his  private 
capacity,  had  to  recognize  the  supreme  authority  of  another. 
Thus  we  see  the  origin  of  slaves  and  subjects,  citizens  and  for- 
eigners, prince  and  tyrant.  Reason  itself  teaches  us  that  govern- 
ments and  states  were  first  founded  upon  force,  though  we  may 
learn  the  same  thing  from  history.  Books,  antiquities  and  laws 
are  full  of  testimonies  that  primitive  man  held  nothing  higher 
than  convenience;  he  would  rob,  plunder,  and  kill,  or  enslave.  .  .  . 
In  this  it  seems  to  me  that  Aristotle,  Demosthenes,  and 
Cicero  are  wrong;  for,  following  Herodotus  (I  think)  they  hold  that 
kings  first  obtained  preferment  on  account  of  their  reputation 
for  integrity  and  justice.  They  have  thus  pictured  to  us  heroic 
and  golden  ages;  this  I  refute  elsewhere  by  positive  arguments 
and  evidence.  For  we  see  that  the  earliest  communities  and 
kingdoms,  before  Abraham's  time,  were  full  of  slaves.  Likewise 
the  western  islands  superabounded  in  slaves  when  they  were 
conquered  by  the  Spanish.  It  is  probable  that  they  lost  their 
liberty  only  through  violence  and  in  defiance  of  the  laws  of  nature. 
Here  is  proof  of  my  theory:  The  people  of  Gao  (in  Africa)  in  the 
preceding  generation  had  heard  of  neither  kingdoms  nor  the  rule 
of  tyrants,  until  one  of  them,  in  his  wandering,  saw  the  majestic 
power  of  the  king  of  Timbuctu.  Thereupon  there  came  upon 
him  the  desire  to  rule  over  his  people;  and,  being  hard  pressed 
by  poverty,  he  began  to  plunder  the  merchants  and  other  rich 
individuals;  finally,  having  thus  obtained  wealth  and  having 
communicated  his  design  to  his  friends,  he  gradually  acquired 
control  over  the  entire  region.  After  him  his  son,  calling  himself 
king,  found  it  necessary  to  preserve  with  equity  and  justice  the 
authority  which  had  originated  in  robbery.  This  is  the  origin 
of  the  Gaoian  kings  who  in  a  short  time  have  advanced  so  rapidly. 
Therefore,  it  may  be  perceived  that  the  definition  of  citizen,  which 
we  gave  above,  is  true;  that  is,  a  citizen  is  a  free  man,  restrained 
by  the  authority  of  a  supreme  power.  Free,  I  say;  for  although 
a  slave  far  more  than  a  free  man,  is  subject  to  the  authority  of 
a  supreme  power,  nevertheless,  by  common  consent  it  is  held 


BODIN  229 

that  he  must  be  excluded  from  the  roll  of  citizens.  The  same 
cannot  be  said  of  the  wives  and  children  of  citizens;  for  though 
they  are  subject  to  domestic  authority,  and  their  liberty  is  there- 
by diminished,  they  are  nevertheless  citizens.  In  the  same  way 
something  of  the  natural  liberty  of  all  citizens  is  lost,  so  that  they 
become  subject  to  the  supreme  power  of  another.1 

It  is  a  more  serious  fault  to  say  that  no  one  is  a  citizen  who 
does  not  participate  in  public  authority,  or  who  has  no  part  in 
the  deliberative  or  consultative  bodies.  This  is  Aristotle's 
definition,  which  he  himself  confesses  has  place  only  in  a  popular 
state.  But  a  definition  which  is  not  general  is  useless,  as  appears 
from  the  words  of  Aristotle  himself.  It  is  no  less  illogical  when  he 
holds  elsewhere  that  nobles  and  townspeople  are  more  to  be 
considered  citizens  than  plebeians  and  peasants,  or  that  youths 
require  to  be  initiated  into  citizenship.  A  definition  does  not 
admit  of  divisions;  it  contains  neither  more  nor  less  than  the 
thing  which  is  defined.  The  description  of  citizenship  which 
Aristotle  has  given  is  not  even  applicable  in  a  popular  state; 
for  in  Athens,  the  most  democratic  of  all  communities,  the  fourth 
class,  containing  three-fourths  of  all  the  citizens,  were  excluded 
altogether  from  directive  and  judicial  offices;  whence  those  who 
accept  Aristotle's  definition  must  admit  that  Athenians  were, 
until  the  time  of  Pericles,  aliens  in  their  own  state.  ...  It  has 
been  more  truly  said  by  Plutarch  thatjStizens  are  those  who  en- 
joy the  benefits  of  the  laws  and  privileges  of  a  civil  community, 
varying  according  to  age,  sex,  rank,  and  condition,  so  that,  for 
example,  nobles  have  the  rights  of  nobles,  and  plebeians  the  rights 
of  plebeians.2 

Thus  the  true  and  proper  distinction  between  citizen  and  alien 
consists  in  the  fact  that  the  former  is  subject  to  the  local  civil 
authority,  whereas  the  latter  can  disregard  the  orders  of  the  prince 
who  is  to  him  an  alien.  On  the  other  hand,  the  prince  is  bound  to 
protect  the  citizen  from  injury  by  enemies  or  by  other  citizens, 
whereas  he  is  not  so  bound  in  behalf  of  the  alien  unless  such 
protection  is  solicited  and  is  granted  from  motives  of  humanity. 
Other  rights  which  have  relation  to  the  privileges  of  citizens, 
such  as  the  right  to  hold  civil  or  ecclesiastical  office,  are  not 
comprehended  within  the  definition  of  citizenship,  although  almost 
everywhere  aliens  are  excluded  from  public  functions  especially 
from  the  priesthood  and  from  the  magistracies.8 

1  De  Republica,  pp.  71-73. 

zlbid.,  pp.  80-8 1.  *Ibid.,  p.  96. 


230  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

2.     The  Nature  and  Functions  of  Sovereignty  l 

Sovereignty  is  supreme  power  over  citizens  and  subjects,  un- 
restrained by  laws.2  .  .  .  Since  we  have  already  defined  the  state 
as  the  rightful  government  of  a  number  of  families  in  their  common 
affairs,  with  a  supreme  and  perpetual  power,  it  should  now  be 
explained  what  is  meant  by  supreme  and  perpetual  power.  We 
say  that  the  power  must  be  perpetual;  for  supreme  power  over 
citizens  may  be  given  to  some  one  or  several  not  perpetually, 
but  for  a  brief  period  at  the  expiration  of  which  the  authority 
ceases.  Such  persons  cannot  be  called  sovereign  rulers;  they  are 
rather  custodians  of  sovereignty  until  such  time  as  the  sovereign 
prince  or  people  may  withdraw  the  power  intrusted,  of  which 
they  are  the  true  owners  and  possessors,  as  those  who  have  lent 
or  pawned  their  goods  to  another;  just  as  those  who  have  conferred 
upon  others  powers  of  judgment  and  command  for  a  certain 
time,  or  to  be  withdrawn  at  will,  do  not  cease  to  be  masters  and 
possessors  of  the  jurisdiction  and  authority.  So  the  jurist  has 
said  that  the  prefect  of  the  Roman  emperor  surrendered  his 
authority  upon  demand  of  the  magistrate.  It  makes  no  differ- 
ence whether  greater  or  less  power  is  thus  conferred;  for  if  the 
high  power  conceded  by  a  prince  to  his  lieutenant  to  be  withdrawn 
at  will,  be  called  sovereignty,  the  power  might  be  used  against  the 
prince  himself,  to  whom  nothing  but  an  empty  title  would  then 
remain;  so  also  a  servant  might  command  his  master,  than  which 
nothing  more  absurd  can  be  imagined.  When  authority  is  granted 
to  a  magistrate  or  to  a  private  individualShe  person  of  the  prince 
is  always  exceptecp  Whatever  authority  the  sovereign  gives 
to  another  is  less  than  that  which  he  reserves  to  himself  by  virtue 
of  his  sovereignty;  and  he  is  never  so  divested  of  his  sovereignty 
that  he  may  not  undertake  an  examination  of  the  affairs  committed 
to  his  magistrates  or  officers,  by  way  of  prevention,  concurrence, 
or  challenge  (ewcatione) ,  or  that  he  may  not  withdraw  power 
altogether  from  them.  Wherefore,  the  Roman  dictator,  the 
harmosts  of  the  Lacedaemonians,  the  esymnet  of  Thessaly,  the 
archons  of  Malta,  or  the  ancient  bailly  of  Florence  (when  it  had 
popular  government),  or  those  who  among  us  are  called  regents, 
or  any  magistrate  or  officer  to  whom  is  conceded  power  which 
though  supreme  is  not  perpetual — no  such  official  can  be  said 
to  have  sovereignty.3 

1  Passages  from  Bk.  I,  chs.  yiii  and  x. 

2  "Maiestas  est  summa  in  cives  ac  subditos  legibusque  soluta  potestas." 

3  De  Republica,  pp.  123-4. 


BODIN  231 

But  suppose  that  supreme  power,  unlimited  by  laws,  and  with- 
out protest  or  appeal,  be  granted  by  the  people  to  some  one  or  few, 
shall  we  say  that  the  latter  have  sovereignty?  For  he  has  sover- 
eignty who,  after  God,  acknowledges  no  one  greater  .than  himself. 
I  hold  that  sovereignty  resides  not  in  such  persons,  but  in  the 
people,' at  whose  pleasure  they  hold  their  power,  or  to  whom  they 
must  return  their  authority  at  the  expiration  of  the  period  desig- 
nated. The  people  cannot  be  considered  as  having  divested  them- 
selves of  their  power  when  they  intrust  supreme  authority,  un- 
restrained by  laws,  to  one  or  a  few,  if  the  commitment  is  for  a 
certain  period  of  time,  or  at  the  pleasure  of  the  people;  for  in 
either  case  the  holders  of  the  supreme  authority  must  render 
account  of  their  doings  to  the  prince  or  people,  who,  being  sover- 
eign, are  required  to  give  account  to  no  one,  save  immortal  God. 
What  if  supreme  power  be  conferred  for  a  period  of  ten  years;  as  in 
Athens  one  archon,  whom  they  called  judge,  stood  thus  pre- 
eminent in  power  in  the  city?  Still  the  sovereignty  of  the  state 
did  not  rest  in  him;  he  was  rather  curator  or  deputy  for  the  people, 
and  had  to  render  account  to  them.  What  if  the  high  power  of 
which  I  speak  be  given  to  one  or  more  for  a  year,  with  no  require- 
ment that  account  of  their  actions  be  given  to  any  one?  So  the 
Cnidians  every  year  chose  sixty  citizens  whom  they  called  amym- 
ones,  that  is,  men  superior  to  any  limitation  or  censure.  Sover- 
eignty, nevertheless,  was  not  in  them,  since  they  were  compelled, 
at  the  expiration  of  the  year,  to  surrender  their  authority.1 

But  what  if  the  people  have  given  supreme  and  perpetual  power 
to  any  one  for  lifp.?  If  the  power  is  given  unlimited  by  laws,  and 
without  the  name  of  magistrate,  deputy,  governor,  or  guardian, 
and  not  at  the  pleasure  of  any  one,  certainly  it  must  be  confessed 
that  sovereign  rights  have  been  conceded  to  such  a  one.  The 
people  in  such  case  have  despoiled  themselves  of  their  authority, 
in  order  to  give  to  another  all  the  privileges  of  sovereignty,  without 
conditions ;  in  like  manner  as  any  one  might  by  pure  gift  surrender 
to  another  the  ownership  and  possession  of  his  property;  such  a 
perfect  donation  contains  no  conditions.2 

As  a  prince  is  bound  by  no  laws  of  his  predecessor,  much  less  is 
he  bound  by  his  own  laws.  One  man  may  receive  a  command 
from  another,  but  no  man  can  command  himself.  Pomponius 
says  that  no  obligation  can  exist  if  it  must  receive  its  sanction  from 
the  will  of  him  who  makes  the  promise;  this  shows  conclusively 
that  a  prince  can  in  no  way  be  bound  by  his  own  laws  and  orders. 

1De  Republica,  p.  126.  *  Ibid.,  p.  128. 


232  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

As  the  Pope,  according  to  the  jurists,  cannot  bind  his  own  hands, 
so  the  supreme  prince,  or  even  the  lowest  magistrate,  or  a  private 
person,  cannot  issue  commands  to  himself.  Thus  we  see  at  the 
end  of  every  law,  " because  it  has  so  pleased  us,"  in  order  that  all 
may  understand  that  laws,  however  just  in  themselves,  depend 
for  their  force  solely  upon  the  will  of  him  who  makes  the  law. 

As  for  the  laws  of  God  and  of  nature,  princes  and  people  are 
equally  bound  by  them,  so  that  no  one  who  attempts  to  abrogate 
or  weaken  them  can  escape  the  judgments  of  divine  sovereignty. 
What  we  have  said  as  to  the  freedom  of  sovereignty  from  the 
binding  force -of  law  does*  not  have  reference  to  divine  or  natural 
law.  That  Pope  who  best  of  all  knew  the  rights  of  sovereignty 
and  who  brought  under  his  sway  almost  all  Christian  emperors 
and  princes,  said  "sovereignty  pertains  to  him  who  can  derogate 
from  ordinary  law  (or  dinar  io  iuri)";  the  latter  expression  I  inter- 
pret to  mean  the -laws  of  the  country  (pair Us  legibus).  But  is  a 
prince  bound  by  the  laws  of  his  country  if  he  has  sworn  to  observe 
them?  Here  it  is  necessary  to  make  a  distinction.  If  the  prince 
has  sworn  to  himself,  no  obligation  exists;  he  is  not  bound  by  an 
oath  made  to  himself;  just  as  private  persons  are  not  bound  by 
oaths  which  they  make  in  mutual  contract,  if  the  contract  be  such 
as  the  law  does  not  make  binding,  however  honorably  the  agree- 
ments may  have  been  made.  If  a  prince  swears  to  another  ruler 
not  to  abrogate  the  laws  made  by  himself  or  by  his  predecessors,  he 
is  bound,  if  the  prince  to  whom  he  makes  the  promiseffaas  interest 
in  the  mattef^  .  .  . 

Likewise  we  say  that  a  prince  who  has  made  sworn  promises 
to  his  subjects  is  bound  by  them,  if  the  promises  are  reasonable;  \ 
but  this  is  true  not  because  he  has  sworn  or  because  he  is  bound 
by  his  own  laws,  but  because  any  one  is  bound  by  his  just  cove- 
nants, if  they  are  made  with  another  who  has  any  interest,  whether 
the  promises  be  made  with  or  without  oath.  Moreover,  as  a 
private  person  may  be  relieved  of  his  obligation  if  he  has  been 
circumvented  by  fraud,  deceit,  error,  or  threat,  so  a  prince  may 
be  released  not  only  in  those  cases  which  tend  to  impair  his  sover- 
eignty, but  also  where  his  private  convenience  and  domestic  affairs 
are  disturbed.1 

This,  then,  I  hold:  A  prince  may  abrogate,  modify,  or  replace 
a  law  made  by  himself  and  without  the  consent  of  his  subjects; 
such  action  is  fully  permissible  where  justice  seems  to  demand  it; 
the  abrogation,  modification,  or  substitution,  however,  must  not 

1  De  Republica,  pp.  134-5. 


BODIN  233 

be  obscure  or  ambiguous,  but  must  be  set  forth  in  clear  detail. 
If  there  is  no  probable  reason  for  abrogating  the  law,  he  is  acting 
contrary  to  the  duty  of  a  good  prince  in  seeking  such  abrogation 
However,  he  is  not  bound  by  any  obligation  assumed  by  his  prede- 
cessors,  further  than  what  is  compatible  with  his  own  interest.  .  . 

We  must  not  confuse  laws  and  contracts.  J-^aw  depends  upon 
the  will  of  him  who  holds  supreme  power  in 
can  bind  subjects  by  his  law,  but  Callliol  bin 
Between  "a  prince  and  his  subjects  has  mutual  biiu&ng  force,  so 
that  it  cannot  be'^eparTCTTrcm~^ve^with~tlie  consent-of-both 
parties;  in  thisrtfae-  prince  see'm"S"iu  have  nothing  above  his  sub-/ 
jects,  except  that  the  purpose  of  a  law  to  which  he  has  sworn 
ing  ceased  to  exist,  he  is  no  longer  bound  either  by  the  law  or 
the  oath  which  he  took  with  regard  to  the  law.  A  well-advi 
prince  will  not  suffer  himself  to  be  bound  by  oath  to  observe  the 
laws,  for  in  such  case  he  does  not  possess  the  supreme  authority  in 
the  commonwealth.1 

As  to  laws  concerning  the  supreme  power  (imperil  leges)*  the 
prince  cannot  abrogate  or  modify  them,  since  they  are  attached 
to  the  very  sovereignty  with  which  he  is  clothed;  such  is  the  Salic 
law,  which  is  the  foundation  of  our  monarchy.3 

The  sovereignty  of  a  prince  is  manifest  in  the  fact  that  when  the 
estates  and  orders  of  the  people,  with  humble  mien,  present  their 
requests  to  him  they  are  exercising  no  authority  of  commanding, 
forbidding,  or  concurring;  but  the  prince  by  his  own  judgment 
and  will  directs  everything  whatever  he  desires  and  orders  has 
the  force  of  law.  The  opinion  of  those  who  in  books  scattered 
broadcast  have  written  that  the  king  is  bound  by  the  popular 
command,  must  be  disregarded;  such  doctrine  furnishes  seditious 
men  with  material  for  revolutionary  plots,  ancfleads  to  disturb- 
ance in  the  commonwealth^  No  reasonable  ground  can  be  adduced 
why  subjects  should  control  princes,  or  why  power  should  be 
attributed  to  popular  assemblies — except  in  the  infancy,  madness, 
or  captivity  of  the  prince,  when  a  guardian  or  deputy  may  be 
created  by  the  suffrages  of  the  people.  If  princes  were  restrained 
by  laws  made  by  these  assemblies  or  by  the  commands  of  the 
people,  the  power  of  the  prince  would  be  worthless  and  the  royal 
name  a  vain  thing.4 

The  approval  and  promulgation  of  laws,  which  is  commonly 

lDe  Republica,  pp.  136-7. 

2  On  the  ambiguity  of  this  expression,  see  Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from 
Luther  to  Montesquieu,  pp.  100-103. 
8  De  Republica,  p.  139.  4  Ibid.,  pp.  139-40. 


234  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

done  in  an  assembly  or  senate,  does  not  imply  that  the  sovereignty 
of  the  realm  resides  in  such  assembly  or  senate,  but  only  a  species 
of  authority  without  which  laws  issued  by  the  king  might  be  called 
in  question  at  his  death,  or  before  the  senate  when  it  acts  judicially. 
I  hold,  therefore,  that  the  sovereignty  of  the  prince  is  in  no  degree 
diminished  by  calling  together  the  assemblies  or  estates,  though 
indeed  a  prince  grants  many  things  to  the  assembled  people  which 
he  would  not  so  readily  grant  to  individuals;  this  is  because  the 
voices  of  individuals  are  not  heard  so  clearly  as  the  voice  of  the 
multitude;  or  it  is  because  the  prince,  accustomed  to  use  the  eyes 
and  ears  of  others,  in  the  assembly  sees  and  hears  the  people 
directly,  and  so,  impelled  by  shame,  religious  fear,  or  his  own  good 
disposition,  he  grants  their  requests.  But  the  highest  privilege 
of  sovereignty  consists  primarily  in  giving  laws  not  only  to  indi- 
viduals but  also  to  the  people  as  a  whole,  without  their  consent.1 

We  may  hold  that  a  king  who  by  lawful  right  assumes  the  king- 
ship is  bound  by  the  contracts  and  promises  of  his  predecessors,  in 
so  far  as  .such  contracts  were  made  for  the  benefit  of  the  common- 
wealth. fThis  is  especially  true  if  they  were  made  with  the  judg- 
ment ana  consent  of  the  entire  people  or  of  the  greater  assemblies; 
for  their  good  faith  is  at  stake,  which  it  is  not  only  appropriate 
but  necessary  for  the  king  to  respect,  even  though  the  state  may 
be  harmed  therebyj  But  when  a  prince  has  contracted  with 
strangers  or  with ''citizens  concerning  matters  pertaining  to  the 
commonwealth  without  the  consent  of  the  people,  if  serious  injury 
would  come  upon  the  commonwealth  from  the  performance  of  the 
contracts,  his  successor  is  not  bound  by  them,  especially  if  he 
obtains  his  authority  through  election  by  the  people  or  the  senate; 
in  such  case  he  has  received  none  of  his  privileges  from  his  prede- 
cessor. It  would  be  otherwise  if  he  had  acquired  authority  by 
grant  from  another;  then  he  would  be  bound  by  the  latter 's  prom- 
ises, unless  express  exception  had  been  made.  But  by  whatever 
right  a  prince  obtains  his  authority,  whether  by  law,  testament, 
popular  election,  or  lot,  it  is  just  to  fulfil  those  obligations  which 
were  undertaken  for  the  good  of  the  state.  Otherwise  it  would 
be  permissible  for  him,  through  evil  practices,  contrary  to  the  laws 
of  nature,  to  draw  profit  to  himself  out  of  hardships  endured  by 
others.  It  is  of  concern  to  the  citizenship  to  keep  the  public 
faith  to  the  best  of  its  ability,  lest  when  the  state  is  in  extreme 
danger  all  means  of  relief  should  be  cut  off.  .  .  . 

But  why,  some  one  may  ask,  are  the  foregoing  distinctions  neces- 
sary, since  all  princes  are  bound  by  the  law  of  nations?  For  in 
1  De  RepuUica,  pp.  143-4. 


BODIN  235 

that  law  compacts  and  testaments  are  included.  This  is  not  true, 
if  we  mean  every  kind  of  contract  or  testament.  But  admitting 
it  to  be  true,  it  does  not  follow  that  a  prince  is  more  bound  by  the 
law  of  nations  than  by  his  own  laws,  except  in  so  far  as  the  former 
are  in  agreement  with  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  God;  to  these 
latter  laws  all  that  we  have  said  concerning  the  obligation  of 
princes  must  be  referred.  If  certain  of  the  laws  of  nations  are 
unjust,  the  prince  may  abrogate  them  and  forbid  his  subjects  to 
follow  them.  This  we  showed  in  relation  to  slavery;  this  institu- 
tion was  established  in  many  states,  by  pernicious  examples,  yet 
in  accord  with  the  law  of  almost  every  nation;  but  through  salu- 
tary decrees  of  several  princes  it  has  been  abolished,  in  conformity 
to  the  laws  of  nature.  What  has  been  said  of  one  thing  may  be 
extended  to  other  things  of  like  kind;  for  a  proviso  in  the  whole 
argumentation  is  that  nothing  be  sanctioned  which  is  contrary  to 
the  laws  of  God  or  of  nature.  For  if  justice  is  the  end  of  the  law, 
and  law  is  the  command  of  the  prince,  and  the  prince  is  the  image 
of  the  almighty  God,  then  the  laws  of  the  prince  should  bear 
the  stamp  of  divine  laws.1 

The  first  and  principal  function  of  sovereignty  is  to  give  laws 
to  the  citizens  generally  and  individually,  and,  it  must  be  added, 
not  necessarily  with  the  consent  of  superiors,  equals,  or  inferiors. 
If  the  consent  of  superiors  is  required,  then  the  prince  is  clearly 
a  subject;  if  he  must  have  the  consent  of  equals,  then  others 
share  his  authority;  if  the  consent  of  inferiors — the  people  or  the 
senate — is  necessary,  then  he  lacks  supreme  authority.  .  .  . 

It  may  be  objected  that  custom  does  not  get  its  power  from  the 
judgment  or  command  of  the  prince,  and  yet  has  almost  the  force 
of  law,  so  that  it  would  seem  that  the  prince  is  master  of  law, 
the  people  of  custom.  Custom,  insensibly,  yet  with  the  full 
compliance  of  all,  passes  gradually  into  the  character  of  men,  and 
acquires  force  with  the  lapse  of  time.  Law,  on  the  other  hand, 
comes  forth  in  one  moment  at  the  order  of  him  who  has  the 
power  to  command,  and  often  in  opposition  to  the  desire  and 
approval  of  those  whom  it  governs.  Wherefore,  Chrysostom 
likens  law  to  a  tyrant  and  custom  to  a  king.  Moreover[jhe  power 
of  law  is  far  greater  than  that  of  customjfor  customs  may  be  su- 
perseded by  laws,  but  laws  are  not  supplanted  by  customs;  it  is 
within  the  power  and  function  of  magistrates  to  restore  the  opera- 
tion of  laws  which  by  custom  are  obsolescent.  Custom  proposes 
neither  rewards  nor  penalties;  laws  carry  one  or  the  other,  unless 

1  De  Republica,  pp.  166-7.  ^  '£ 


236  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

it  be  a  permissive  law  which  nullifies  the  penalty  of  some  other 
law.  In  short,  a  custom  has  compelling  force  only  as  long  as  the 
prince,  by  adding  his  endorsement  and  sanction  to  the  custom, 
makes  it  a  law. 

It  is  thus  clear  that  laws  and  customs  depend  for  their  force 
upon  the  will  of  those  who  hold  supreme  power  in  the  state.  This 
first  and  chief  mark  of  sovereignty  is,  therefore,  of  such  sort  that 
it  cannot  be  transferred  to  subjects,  though  the  prince  or  people 
sometimes  confer  upon  one  of  the  citizens  the  power  to  frame  laws 
(legum  condendarum) ,  which  then  have  the  same  force  as  if  they 
had  been  framed  by  the  prince  himself.  The  Lacedaemonians 
bestowed  such  power  upon  Lycurgus,  the  Athenians  upon  Solon; 
each  stood  as  deputy  for  his  state,  and  the  fulfilment  of  his  func- 
tion depended  upon  the  pleasure  not  of  himself  but  of  the  people; 
his  legislation  had  no  force  save  as  the  people  confirmed  it  by  their 
assent.  The  former  composed  and  wrote  the  laws,  the  people 
enacted  and  commanded  them. 

Under  this  supreme  power  of  ordaining  and  abrogating  laws,  it 
is  clear  that  all  other  functions  of  sovereignty  are  included;  so 
that  it  may  be  truly  said  that  supreme  authority  in  the  state  is 
comprised  in  this  one  thing — namely,  to  give  laws  to  all  and  each 
of  the  citizens,  and  to  receive  none  from  them. /For  to  declare 
war  or  make  peace,  though  seeming  to  involve  what  is  alien  to  the 
term  law,  is  yet  accomplished  by  law,  that  is  by  decree  of  the 
supreme  power./  It  is  also  the  prerogative  of  sovereignty  to 
receive  appeals  from  the  highest  magistrates,  to  confer  authority 
upon  the  greater  magistrates  and  to  withdraw  it  from  them,  to 
allow  exemption  from  taxes,  to  bestow  other  immunities,  to  grant 
dispensations  from  the  laws,  to  exercise  power  of  life  and  death, 
to  fix  the  value,  name  and  form  of  money,  to  compel  all  citizens 
to  observe  their  oaths:  all  of  these  attributes  are  derived  from  the 
supreme  power  of  commanding  and  forbidding — that  is,  from  the 
authority  to  give  law  to  the  citizens  collectively  and  individually, 
and  to  receive  law  from  no  one  save  immortal  God.  A  duke, 
therefore,  who  gives  laws  to  all  his  subjects,  but  receives  law  from 
the  emperor,  Pope,  or  king,  or  has  a  co-partner  in  authority,  lacks 
sovereignty.1 

SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

Baudrillart,  /.  Bodin  et  son  temps,  pp.  111-221. 

Franck,  Reformateurs  et  publicistes  de  V Europe,  mdyen  age,  pp.  395-407. 

1  De  Republica,  pp.  240-3. 


BODIN  237 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  ch.  iii. 

Pollock,  History  of  the  Science  of  Politics,  pp.  47-56. 

Baudrillart,  /.  Bodin  el  son  temps,  pp.  222-512. 

Franck,  Reformateurs  et  publicistes  de  V Europe,  moyen  age,  pp.  408-506. 

Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  II,  pp.  114-127. 

Bluntschli,  Geschichte  der  neuren  Staatswissenschaft,  pp.  26-56. 

Hancke,  Bodin,  eine  Studie  iiber  den  Begriff  der  Souverdnetdt. 

Hallam,  Literature  of  Europe  in  the  Fifteenth,  Sixteenth,  and  Seventeenth  Cen- 
turies, Vol.  II,  pp.  51-70. 

Flint,  Historical  Philosophy  in  France,  French  Belgium,  and  Switzerland, 
pp.  190-200. 


HOOKER 


XI.    RICHARD  HOOKER  (1553-1600) 

INTRODUCTION 

Before  the  late  sixteenth  century  no  important  work  in  political 
theory,  of  distinctively  English  origin,  had  appeared.  English 
constitutional  development  had  been  shaped  by  men  of  practical 
minds  and  interpreted  by  lawyers.  Controversies  evoked  by 
great  political  issues  had  been  sought  to  be  determined  by  dis- 
cussion, not  of  the  ideas  and  grounds  of  government  generally, 
but  of  English  law  and  custom.  The  earliest  substantial  contribu- 
*«  tion  to  political  philosophy  from  an  English  author  is  Richard 
Hooker's  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity;  this  is  the  first  great  theo- 
retical work  in  English  prose  literature.  It  is  primarily  a  work  in 
theology. 

Questions  which  had  been  raised  by  the  Protestant  movement 
in  the  church  reached  England  during  the  period  of  the  effective 
absolutism  of  the  Tudors.  The  movement  created  religious 
differences  among  the  people  in  England  as  it  had  elsewhere;  and 
those  who  dissented  from  whichever  cult  might  be  accepted  by 
the  monarch,  were  liable  to  persecution.  'But  in  England  religious 
divisions  were  not  at  that  time  blended  with  powerful  political 
factions  among  the  people;  and  the  absolutism  of  the  crown  en- 
joyed the  support  of  strong  national  sentiment.  After  the  definite 
adoption  of  Protestantism  by  Elizabeth,  pamphleteers  debated  in 
somewhat  broader  terms  than  formerly,  questions  concerning  the 
rights  of  the  people  or  the  authority  of  kings;  and  they  borrowed 
arguments  from  continental  disputants.  But  neither  side  pre- 
sented any  clear  or  fundamental  statement  of  political  doctrine. 
This  we  find  only  in  Hooker's  work. 

Hooker  was  a  learned  clergyman  in  the  Anglican  church.  His 
book  was  the  outgrowth  of  a  controversy  on  church  government. 
In  early  manhood  he  became  engaged  in  a  dispute  with  a  Presby- 
terian clergyman  as  to  the  validity  of  the  particular  organization 
that  had  been  the  somewhat  accidental  outcome  of  the  dealings 
of  Tudor  monarchs  with  the  ecclesiastical  problems  produced  by 

241 


242  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  upheaval  in  the  Christian  church.  The  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical 
Polity  was  intended  to  establish  a  broad  basis  for  refutation  of 
the  attacks  made  by  Presbyterians  upon  the  polity  and  practices 
of  the  Anglican  church.  To  their  main  charge  that  the  episcopal 
organization  was  unscriptural,  Hooker  replied  that  no  fixed  polity 
was  required  by  the  Scriptures.  Ecclesiastical  laws,  he  main- 
tained, belong  to  that  type  of  laws  which  must  be  shaped  by  the 
reason  and  other  faculties  of  man;  they  are,  therefore,  changeable, 
as  distinguished  from  immutable  natural  laws.  The  basis  of  the 
discussion  in  the  Ecclesiastical  Polity  is  established  in  the  first 
book,  which  presents  a  fundamental  examination  of  the  origin, 
province,  and  obligation  of  laws  in  general.  This  analysis  com- 
prises clear  philosophic  statement  of  certain  doctrines,  with 
respect  to  the  ground  and  origin  of  political  society  and  the  nature 
and  sanction  of  human  laws,  which  in  the  two  succeeding  centuries 
were  first  principles  with  political  theorists  of  democratic  tendency. 
Hooker's  treatise  has  been  appropriately  described  as  follows:  vlt 
set  the  example  of  an  attempt  to  exhibit  in  English,  in  a  shape 
suited  to  an  intelligent  English  reader,  a  serious  theory  of  the 
order  of  the  world,  the  principles  on  which  it  is  governed,  the  nature 
of  society,  and  the  relations  of  its  different  parts:  a  theory  which, 
after  all  the  criticisms  upon  it,  and  with  all  its  famous  successors 
and  rivals,  still  occupies  the  thought  of  modern  inquirers. "  l  ) 

READINGS  FROM  LAWS  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY2 

1 .     The  Ground  and  Origin  of  Political  Society  * 

X.  That  which  hitherto  we  have  set  down  is  (I  hope)  sufficient 
to  shew  their  brutishness,  which  imagine  that  religion  and  virtue 
are  only  as  men  will  account  of  them;  that  we  might  make  as 
much  account,  if  we  would,  of  the  contrary,  without  any  harm 
unto  ourselves,  and  that  in  nature  they  are  as  indifferent  one  as 
the  other.  We  see  then  how  nature  itself  teacheth  laws  and  stat- 
utes to  live  by.  The  laws  which  have  been  hitherto  mentioned  do 
bind  men  absolutely  even  as  they  are  men,  although  they  have 

1  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  Book  I,  edited  by  R.  W.  Church;  introduc- 
tion, p.  xix. 

2  The  selections  are  taken  from  Hooker's  Of  the  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity, 
Book  I,  edited  by  R.  W.  Church.    Oxford,  1896.    By  permission  of  the  Dele- 
gates of  the  Clarendon  Press. 

3Bk.  I,  ch.  x,  §§  1-4. 


HOOKER  243 

never  any  settled  fellowship,  never  any  solemn  agreement  amongst 
themselves  what  to  do  or  not  to  do.  But  forasmuch  as  we  are 
not  by  ourselves  sufficient  to  furnish  ourselves  with  competent 
store  of  things  needful  for  such  a  life  as  our  nature  doth  desire,  a 
life  fit  for  the  dignity  of  man;  therefore  to  supply  those  defects  and 
imperfections  which  are  in  us  living  single  and  solely  by  ourselves, 
we  are  naturally  induced  to  seek  communion  and  fellowship  with 
others.  This  was  the  cause  of  men's  uniting  themselves  at  the 
first  in  politic  societies;  which  societies  could  not  be  without 
government,  nor  government  without  a  distinct  kind  of  law  from 
that  which  hath  been  already  declared.  Two  foundations  there 
are  which  bear  up  public  societies;  the  one,  a  natural  inclination, 
whereby  all  men  desire  sociable  life  and  fellowship;  the  other,  an 
order  expressly  or  secretly  agreed  upon  touching  the  manner  of 
their  union  in  living  together.  The  latter  is  that  which  we  call 
the  law  of  a  commonweal,  the  very  soul  of  a  politic  body,  the 
parts  whereof  are  by  law  animated  held  together,  and  set 
on  work  in  such  actions  as  the  common  good  requireth.  Laws 
politic,  ordained  for  external  order  and  regiment  amongst  men, 
are  never  framed  as  they  should  be,  unless  presuming  the  will  of 
man  to  be  inwardly  obstinate,  rebellious,  and  averse  from  all 
obedience  unto  the  sacred  laws  of  his  nature;  in  a  word,  unless 
presuming  man  to  be  in  regard  of  his  depraved  mind  little  better 
than  a  wild  beast,  they  do  accordingly  provide  notwithstanding 
so  to  frame  his  outward  actions,  that  they  be  no  hindrance  unto 
the  common  good  for  which  societies  are  instituted:  unless  they 
do  this,  they  are  not  perfect.  It  resteth  therefore  that  we  con- 
sider how  nature  findeth  out  such  laws  of  government  as  serve  to 
direct  even  nature  depraved  to  a  right  end. 

2.  All  men  desire  to  lead  in  this  world  a  happy  life.  That 
life  is  led  most  happily,  wherein  all  virtue  is  exercised  without 
impediment  or  let.  The  Apostle,1  in  exhorting  men  to  content- 
ment although  they  have  in  this  world  no  more  than  very  bare 
food  and  raiment,  giveth  us  thereby  to  understand  that  those  are 
even  the  lowest  of  things  necessary  -t  that  if  we  should  be  stripped  of 
all  those  things  without  which  we  might  possibly  be,  yet  these 
must  be  left;  that  destitution  in  these  is  such  an  impediment,  as 
till  it  be  removed  suffereth  not  the  mind  of  man  to  admit  any  other 
care.  For  this  cause,  first  God  assigned  Adam  maintenance  of 
life,  and  then  appointed  him  a  law  to  observe.2  For  this  cause, 
after  men  began  to  grow  to  a  number,  the  first  thing  we  read  they 
gave  themselves  unto  was  the  tilling  of  the  earth  and  the  feeding  of 

1 1  Tim.  vi.  8.  2  Gen.  i.  29;  ii.  17. 


244  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

cattle.  Having  by  this  mean  whereon  to  live,  the  principal  actions 
of  their  life  afterward  are  noted  by  the  exercise  of  their  religion.1 
True  it  is,  that  the  kingdom  of  God  must  be  the  first  thing  in  our 
purposes  and  desires.2  But  inasmuch  as  righteous  life  presup- 
poseth  life;  inasmuch  as  to  live  virtuously  it  is  impossible  except 
we  live;  therefore  the  first  impediment,  which  naturally  we  en- 
deavor to  remove,  is  penury  and  want  of  things  without  which  we 
cannot  live.  Unto  life  many  implements  are  necessary;  more,  if 
we  seek  (as  all  men  naturally  do)  such  a  life  as  hath  in  it  joy, 
comfort,  delight,  and  pleasure.  To  this  end  we  see  how  quickly 
sundry  arts  mechanical  were  found  out,  in  the  very  prime  of  the 
world.8  As  things  of  greatest  necessity  are  always  first  provided 
for,  so  things  of  greatest  dignity  are  most  accounted  of  by  all 
such  as  judge  rightly.  Although  therefore  riches  be  a  thing 
which  every  man  wisheth,  yet  no  man  of  judgment  can  esteem  it 
better  to  be  rich,  than  wise,  virtuous  and  religious.  If  we  be  both 
or  either  of  these,  it  is  not  because  we  are  so  born.  For  into  the 
world  we  come  as  empty  of  the  one  as  of  the  other,  as  naked  in 
mind  as  we  are  in  body.  Both  which  necessities  of  man  had  at 
the  first  no  other  helps  and  supplies  than  only  domestical;  such 
as  that  which  the  Prophet  implieth,  saying,  Can  a  mother  forget 
her  child?*  such  as  that  which  the  Apostle  mentioneth,  saying, 
He  that  careth  not  for  his  own  is  worse  than  an  Infidel:*  such  as  that 
concerning  Abraham,  Abraham  will  command  his  sons  and  his 
household  after  him,  that  they  keep  the  way  of  the  Lord.5 

3.  But  neither  that  which  we  learn  of  ourselves  nor  that  which 
others  teach  us  can  prevail,  where  wickedness  and  malice  have 
taken  deep  root.  If  therefore  when  there  was  but  as  yet  one 
only  family  in  the  world,  no  means  of  instruction  human  or  divine 
could  prevent  effusion  of  blood;7  how  could  it  be  chosen  but  that 
when  families  were  multiplied  and  increased  upon  earth,  after 
separation  each  providing  for  itself,  envy,  strife,  contention,  and 
violence  must  grow  amongst  them?  For  hath  not  nature  furnished 
man  with  wit  and  valor,  as  it  were  with  armor,  which  may  be 
used  as  well  unto  extreme  evil  as  good?  Yea,  were  they  not  used 
by  the  rest  of  the  world  unto  evil;  unto  the  contrary  only  by  Seth, 
Enoch,  and  those  few  the  rest  in  that  line? 8  We  all  make  complaint 
of  the  iniquity  of  our  times:  not  unjustly;  for  the  days  are  evil. 
But  compare  them  with  those  times  wherein  there  were  no  civil 
societies,  with  those  times  wherein  there  was  as  yet  no  manner  of 

1Matt.  vi.  33.  4Isa.  xlix.  15.  7Gen.  iv.  8. 

2  Gen.  iv.  2,  26.  6 1  Tim.  y.  8.  8Gen.  vi.  5;  Gen.  v. 

8  Gen.  iv.  20,  21,  22.  «Gen.  xviii.  19. 


HOOKER  245 

public  regiment  established,  with  those  times  wherein  there  were 
not  above  eight  persons  righteous  living  upon  the  face  of  the  earth;1 
and  we  have  surely  good  cause  to  think  that  God  hath  blessed  us  ex- 
ceedingly, and  hath  made  us  behold  most  happy  days. 

4.  To  take  away  all  such  mutual  grievances,  injuries,  and 
wrongs,  there  was  no  way  but  only  by  growing  unto  composition 
and  agreement  amongst  themselves,  by  ordaining  some  kind  of 
government  public,  and  by  yielding  themselves  subject  thereunto; 
that  unto  whom  they  granted  authority  to  rule  and  govern,  by 
them  the  peace,  tranquillity,  and  happy  estate  of  the  rest  might  be 
procured.  Men  always  knew  that  when  force  and  injury  was 
offered  they  might  be  defenders  of  themselves;  they  knew  that 
howsoever  men  may  seek  their  own  commodity,  yet  if  this  were 
done  with  injury  unto  others  it  was  not  to  be  suffered,  but  by  all 
men  and  by  all  good  means  to  be  withstood;  finally  they  knew 
that  no  man  might  in  reason  take  upon  him  to  determine  his  own 
right,  and  according  to  his  own  determination  proceed  in  main- 
tenance thereof,  inasmuch  as  every  man  is  toward  himself  and 
them  whom  he  greatly  affecteth  partial;  and  therefore  that  strifes 
and  troubles  would  be  endless,  except  they  gave  their  common  con- 
sent all  to  be  ordered  by  some  whom  they  should  agree  upon: 
without  which  consent  there  was  no  reason  that  one  man  should 
take  upon  him  to  be  lord  or  judge  over  another;  because,  although 
there  be  according  to  the  opinion  of  some  very  great  and  judicious 
men  a  kind  of  natural  right  in  the  noble,  wise,  and  virtuous,  to 
govern  them  which  are  of  servile  disposition;  nevertheless  for  mani- 
festation of  this  their  right,  and  men's  more  peaceable  content- 
ment on  both  sides,  the  assent  of  them  who  are  to  be  governed 
seemeth  necessary. 

To  fathers  within  their  private  families  nature  hath  given  a 
supreme  power;  for  which  cause  we  see  throughout  the  world 
even  from  the  foundation  thereof,  all  men  have  ever  been  taken  as 
lords  and  lawful  kings  in  their  own  houses.  Howbeit  over  a  whole 
grand  multitude  having  no  such  dependency  upon  any  one,  and 
consisting  of  so  many  families  as  every  politic  society  in  the  world 
doth,  impossible  it  is  that  any  should  have  complete  lawful  power, 
but  by  consent  of  men,  or  immediate  appointment  of  God;  because 
not  having  the  natural  superiority  of  fathers,  their  power  must 
needs  be  either  usurped,  and  then  unlawful;  or,  if  lawful,  then 
either  granted  or  consented  unto  by  them  over  whom  they  exer- 
cise the  same,  or  else  given  extraordinarily  from  God,  unto  whom 
all  the  world  is  subject.  It  is  no  improbable  opinion  therefore 

1  2  Pet.  ii.  5. 


246  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

which  the  Arch-philosopher  was  of,  that  as  the  chiefest  person  in 
every  household  was  always  as  it  were  a  king,  so  when  numbers 
of  households  joined  themselves  in  civil  society  together,  kings 
were  the  first  kind  of  governors  amongst  them!  Which  is  also 
(as  it  seemeth)  the  reason  why  the  name  of  Father  continued  still 
in  them,  who  of  fathers  were  made  rulers ;  as  also  the  ancient  cus- 
tom of  governors  to  do  as  Melchisedec,  and  being  kings  to  exercise 
the  office  of  priests,  which  fathers  did  at  the  first,  grew  perhaps 
by  the  same  occasion. 

Howbeit  not  this  the  only  kind  of  regiment  that  hath  been 
received  in  the  world.  The  inconveniences  of  one  kind  have  caused 
sundry  other  to  be  devised.  So  that  in  a  word  all  public  regiment 
of  what  kind  soever  seemeth  evidently  to  have  risen  from  deliberate 
advice,  consulation,  and  composition  between  men,  judging  it 
convenient  and  behoveful;  there  being  no  impossibility  in  nature 
considered  by  itself,  but  that  men  might  have  lived  without  any 
public  regiment.  Howbeit,  the  corruption  of  our  nature  being 
presupposed,  we  may  not  deny  but  that  the  law  of  nature  doth 
now  require  of  necessity  some  kind  of  regiment;  so  that  to  bring 
things  unto  the  first  course  they  were  in,  and  utterly  to  take  away 
all  kind  of  public  government  in  the  world,  were  apparently  to 
overturn  the  whole  world. 

2.     The  Nature,  Authority,  and  Kinds  of  Law  l 

^s. 

5.  The  case  of  man's  nature  standing  therefore  as  it  doth, 
some  kind  of  regiment  the  law  of  nature  doth  require;  yet  the  kinds 
thereof  being  many,  nature  tieth  not  to  any  one,  but  leaveth 
the  choice  as  a  thing  arbitrary.'  At  the  first  when  some  certain 
kind  of  regiment  was  once  approved,  it  may  be  that  nothing  was 
then  further  thought  upon  for  the  manner  of  governing,  but  all  per- 
mitted unto  their  wisdom  and  discretion  which  were  to  rule;  till 
by  experience  they  found  this  for  all  parts  very  inconvenient,  so 
as  the  thing  which  they  had  devised  for  a  remedy  did  indeed  but 
increase  the  sore  which  it  should  have  cured.  They  saw  that  tQ 
live  by  one  man's  will  became  the  cause  of  all  men's  misery.  This 
constrained  them  to  come  unto  laws^  wherein  all  men  might  see 
their  duties  beforehand,  and  know  the  penalties  of  transgressing 
them.  If  things  be  simply  good  or  evil,  and  withal  universally 
so  acknowledged,  there  needs  no  new  law  to  be  made  for  such 
things.  The  first  kind  therefore  of  things  appointed  by  laws 
human  containeth  whatsoever  being  in  itself  naturally  good  or 

*  Bk.  I,  ch.  x,  §§  5-13- 


HOOKER  247 

evil,  is  notwithstanding  more  secret  than  that  it  can  be  discerned 
by  every  man's  present  conceit,  without  some  deeper  discourse 
and  judgment.  In  which  discourse  because  there  is  difficulty  and 
possibility  many  ways  to  err,  unless  such  things  were  set  down  by 
laws,  many  would  be  ignorant  of  their  duties  which  now  are  not, 
and  many  that  know  what  they  should  do  would  nevertheless 
dissemble  it,  and  to  excuse  themselves  pretend  ignorance  and 
simplicity,  which  now  they  cannot. 

6.  And  because  the  greatest  part  of  men  are  such  as  prefer 
their  own  private  good  before  all  things,  even  that  good  which  is 
sensual  before  whatsoever  is  most  divine;  and  for  that  the  labor 
of  doing  good,  together  with  the  pleasure  arising  from  the  con- 
trary, doth  make  men  for  the  most  part  slower  to  the  one  and 
proner  to  the  other,  than  that  duty  prescribed  them  by  law  can 
prevail  sufficiently  with  them:   therefore  unto  laws  that  men  do 
make  for  the  benefit  of  men  it  hath  seemed  always  needful  to  add 
rewards,  which  may  more  allure  unto  good  than  any  hardness 
deterreth  from  it,  and  punishments,  which  may  more  deter  from 
evil  than  any  sweetness  thereto  allureth.     Wherein  as  the  general- 
ity is  natural,  Virtue  rewardable  and  vice  punishable;  so  the  par- 
ticular determination  of  the  reward  or  punishment  belongeth  unto 
them  by  whom  laws  are  made.     Theft  is  naturally  punishable, 
but  the  kind  of  punishment  is  positive,  and  such  lawful  as  men 
shall  think  with  discretion  convenient  by  law  to  appoint. 

7.  In  laws,  that  which  is  natural  bindeth  universally,  that 
which  is  positive  not  so.     To  let  go  those  kinds  of  positive  laws 
which  men  impose  upon  themselves,  as  by  vow  unto  God,  contract 
with  men,  or  such  like;  somewhat  it  will  make  unto  our  purpose, 
a  little  more  fully  to  consider  what  things  are  incident  into  the 
making  of  the  positive  laws  for  the  government  of  them  that  live 
united  in  public  society.     Laws  do  not  only  teach  what  is  good, 
but  they  enjoin  it;  they  have  in  them  a  certain  constraining  force. 
And  to  constrain  men  unto  any  thing  inconvenient  doth  seem  un- 
reasonable.    Most  requisite  therefore  it  is  that  to  devise  laws  which 
all  men  shall  be  forced  to  obey  none  but  wise  men  be  admitted. 
Laws  are  matters  of  principal  consequence;  men  of  common 
capacity  and  but  ordinary  judgment  are  not  able  (for  how  should 
they?)  to  discern  what  things  are  fittest  for  each  kind  and  state 
of  regiment.     We  cannot  be  ignorant  how  much  our  obedience 
unto  laws  dependeth  upon  this  point.     Let  a  man  though  never 
so  justly  oppose  himself  unto  them  that  are  disordered  in  their 
ways,  and  what  one  amongst  them  commonly  doth  not  stomach 
at  such  contradiction,  storm  at  reproof,  and  hate  such  as  would  re- 


248  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

form  them?  Notwithstanding  even  they  which  brook  it  worst 
that  men  should  tell  them  of  their  duties,  when  they  are  told  the 
same  by  a  law,  think  very  well  and  reasonably  of  it.  For  why? 
They  presume  that  the  law  doth  speak  with  all  indifferency;  that 
the  law  hath  no  side-respect  to  their  persons;  that  the  law  is  as 
it  were  an  oracle  proceeded  from  wisdom  and  understanding. 

8.  Howbeit  laws  do  not  take  their  constraining  force  from  the 
quality  of  such  as  devise  them,  but  from  that  power  which  doth 
give  them  the  strength  of  laws.  That  which  we  spake  before 
concerning  the  power  of  government  must  here  be  applied  unto 
the  power  of  making  laws  whereby  to  govern;  which  power  God 
hath  over  all :  <  and  by  the  natural  law,  whereunto  he  hath  made 
all  subject,  the  lawful  power  of  making  laws  to  command  whole 
politic  societies  of  men  belongeth  so  properly  unto  the  same  entire 
societies,  that  for  any  prince  or  potentate  of  what  kind  soever  upon 
earth  to  exercise  the  same  of  himself,  and  not  either  by  express 
commission  immediately  and  personally  received  from  God,  or 
else  by  authority  derived  at  the  first  from  their  consent  upon  whose 
persons  they  impose  laws,  it  is  no  better  than  mere  tyranny. 

Laws  they  are  not  therefore  which  public  approbation  hath 
not  made  so.  But  approbation  not  only  they  give  who  per- 
sonally declare  their  assent  by  voice,  sign,  or  act,  but  also  when 
others  do  it  in  their  names  by  right  originally  at  the  least  derived 
from  them.  As  in  parliaments,  councils,  and  the  like  assemblies, 
although  we  be  not  personally  ourselves  present,  notwithstanding 
our  assent  is,  by  reason  of  others,  agents  there  in  our  behalf.  And 
what  we  do  by  others,  no  reason  but  that  it  should  stand  as  our 
deed,  no  less  effectually  to  bind  us  than  if  ourselves  had  done  it 
in  person.  In  many  things  assent  is  given,  they  that  give  it  not 
imagining  they  do  so,  because  the  manner  of  their  assenting  is 
not  apparent.  As  for  example,  when  an  absolute  monarch  com- 
mandeth  his  subjects  that  which  seemeth  good  in  his  own  discre- 
tion, hath  not  his  edict  the  force  of  a  law  whether  they  approve 
or  dislike  it?  Again,  that  which  hath  been  received  long  sithence 
and  is  by  custom  now  established,  we  keep  as  a  law  which  we 
may  not  transgress;  yet  what  consent  was  ever  thereunto  sought 
or  required  at  our  hands? 

Of  this  point  therefore  we  are  to  note,  that  sith  men  naturally 
have  no  full  and  perfect  power  to  command  whole  public  multi- 
tudes of  men,  therefore  utterly  without  our  consent  we  would 
in  such  sort  be  at  no  man's  commandment  living.  And  to  be 
commanded  we  do  consent,  when  that  society  whereof  we  are  part 
hath  at  any  time  before  consented,  without  revoking  the  same 


HOOKER  249 

after  by  the  like  universal  agreement.  Wherefore  as  any  man's 
deed  past  is  good  as  long  as  himself  continueth;  so  the  act  of  a 
public  society  of  men  done  five  hundred  years  sithence  standeth 
as  theirs  who  presently  are  of  the  same  societies,  because  corpora- 
tions are  immortal;  we  were  then  alive  in  our  predecessors,  and 
they  in  their  successors  do  live  still.  Laws  therefore  human 
of  what  kind  soever,  are  available  by  consent. 

9.  If  here  it  be  demanded  how  it  cometh  to  pass  that  this 
being  common  unto  all  laws  which  are  made,  there  should  be 
found  even  in  good  laws  so  great  variety  as  there  is;  we  must 
note  the  reason  thereof  to  be  the  sundry  particular  ends,  where- 
unto  the  different  disposition  of  that  subject  or  matter,  for  which 
laws  are  provided,  causeth  them  to  have  especial  respect  in  making 
laws.  A  law  there  is  mentioned  amongst  the  Grecians  whereof 
Pittacus  is  reported  to  have  been  author;  and  by  that  law  it 
was  agreed,  that  he  which  being  overcome  with  drink  did  then 
strike  any  man,  should  suffer  punishment  double  as  much  as  if 
he  had  done  the  same  being  sober.  No  man  could  ever  have 
thought  this  reasonable,  that  had  intended  thereby  only  to 
punish  the  injury  committed  according  to  the  gravity  of  the  fact: 
for  who  knoweth  not  that  harm  advisedly  done  is  naturally  less 
pardonable,  and  therefore  worthy  of  the  sharper  punishment? 
But  forasmuch  as  none  did  so  usually  this  way  offend  as  men  in 
that  case,  which  they  wittingly  fell  into,  even  because  they  would 
be  so  much  the  more  freely  outrageous;  it  was  for  their  public 
good,  where  such  disorder  was  grown,  to  frame  a  positive  law 
for  remedy  thereof  accordingly.  To  this  appertain  those  known 
laws  of  making  laws;  as  that  law-makers  must  have  an  eye  to 
the  place  where,  and  to  the  men  amongst  whom:  that  one  kind  of 
laws  cannot  serve  for  all  kinds  of  regiment:  that  where  the  multi- 
tude beareth  sway,  laws  that  shall  tend  unto  preservation  of 
that  state  must  make  common  smaller  offices  to  go  by  lot,  for 
fear  of  strife  and  division  likely  to  arise,  by  reason  that  ordinary 
qualities  sufficing  for  discharge  of  such  offices,  they  could  not  but 
by  many  be  desired,  and  so  with  danger  contended  for,  and  not 
missed  without  grudge  and  discontentment,  whereas  at  an  un- 
certain lot  none  can  find  themselves  grieved,  on  whomsoever  it 
lighteth;  contrariwise  the  greatest,  whereof  but  few  are  capable, 
to  pass  by  popular  election,  that  neither  the  people  may  envy 
such  as  have  those  honors,  inasmuch  as  themselves  bestow  them, 
and  that  the  chief est  may  be  kindled  with  desire  to  exercise 
all  parts  of  rare  and  beneficial  virtue,  knowing  they  shall  not  lose 
their  labor  by  growing  in  fame  and  estimation  amongst  the  people : 


250  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

if  the  helm  of  chief  government  be  in  the  hands  of  a  few  of  the 
wealthiest,  that  then  laws  providing  for  continuance  thereof  must 
make  the  punishment  of  contumely  and  wrong  offered  unto  any 
of  the  common  sort  sharp  and  grievous,  that  so  the  evil  may  be 
prevented  whereby  the  rich  are  most  likely  to  bring  themselves 
into  hatred  with  the  people,  who  are  not  wont  to  take  so  great 
an  offence  when  they  are  excluded  from  honors  and  offices, 
as  when  their  persons  are  contumeliously  trodden  upon.  In 
other  kinds  of  regiment  the  like  is  observed  concerning  the  differ- 
ence of  positive  laws,  which  to  be  everywhere  the  same  is  impossible 
and  against  their  nature. 

10.  Now  as  the  learned  in  the  laws  of  this  land  observe,  that 
our  statutes  sometimes  are  only  the  affirmation  or  ratification  of 
that  which  by  common  law  was  held  before;  so  here  it  is  not  to  be 
omitted  that  generally  all  laws  human,  which  are  made  for  the 
ordering  of  politic  societies,  be  either  such  as  establish  some  duty 
whereunto  all  men  by  the  law  of  reason  did  before  stand  bound; 
or  else  such  as  make  that  a  duty  now  which  before  was  none. 
The  one  sort  we  may  for  distinction's  sake  call  mixedly,  and  the 
other  merely  human.  That  which  plain  or  necessary  reason 
bindeth  men  unto  may  be  in  sundry  considerations  expedient  to 
be  ratified  by  human  law.  For  example,  if  confusion  of  blood 
in  marriage,  the  liberty  of  having  many  wives  at  once,  or  any 
other  the  like  corrupt  and  unreasonable  custom  doth  happen 
to  have  prevailed  far,  and  to  have  gotten  the  upper  hand  of 
right  reason  with  the  greatest  part,  so  that  no  way  is  left  to  rectify 
such  foul  disorder  without  prescribing  by  law  the  same  things 
which  reason  necessarily  doth  enforce  but  is  not  perceived  that  so 
it  doth;  or  if  many  be  grown  unto  that  which  the  Apostle  did 
lament  in  some,  concerning  whom  he  writeth,  saying,  that  Even 
what  things  they  naturally  know,  in  those  very  things  as  beasts  void 
of  reason  they  corrupted  themselves]1  or  if  there  be  no  such  special 
accident,  yet  forasmuch  as  the  common  sort  are  led  by  the  sway 
of  their  sensual  desires,  and  therefore  do  more  shun  sin  for  the 
sensible  evils  which  follow  it  amongst  men,  than  for  any  kind  of 
sentence  which  reason  doth  pronounce  against  it;  this  very  thing 
is  cause  sufficient  why  duties  belonging  unto  each  kind  of  virtue, 
albeit  the  law  of  reason  teach  them,  should  notwithstanding  be 
prescribed  even  by  human  law.  Which  law  in  this  case  we  term 
mixed,  because  the  matter  whereunto  it  bindeth  is  the  same  which 
reason  necessarily  doth  require  at  our  hands,  and  from  the  law  of 
reason  it  differeth  in  the  manner  of  binding  only.  For  whereas 

1  Jude  10. 


HOOKER  251 

men  before  stood  bound  in  conscience  to  do  as  the  law  of  reason 
teacheth,  they  are  now  by  virtue  of  human  law  become  constrain- 
able,  and  if  they  outwardly  transgress,  punishable.  As  for  laws 
which  are  merely  human,  the  matter  of  them  is  any  thing  which 
reason  doth  but  probably  teach  to  be  fit  and  convenient;  so  that 
till  such  time  as  law  hath  passed  amongst  men  about  it,  of  itself 
it  bindeth  no  man.  One  example  whereof  may  be  this.  Lands 
are  by  human  law  in  some  places  after  the  owner's  decease  divided 
unto  all  his  children,  in  some  all  descendeth  to  the  eldest  son. 
frlf  the  law  of  reason  did  necessarily  require  but  the  one  of  these 
^two  to  be  done,  they  which  by  law  have  received  the  other  should 
be  subject  to  that  heavy  sentence,  which  denounceth  against  all 
that  decree  wicked,  unjust,  and  unreasonable  things,  woe.1  Where- 
as now  whichsoever  be  received  there  is  no  law  of  reason  trans- 
gressed; because  there  is  probable  reason  why  either  of  them  may 
be  expedient,  and  for  either  of  them  more  than  probable  reason 
»  there  is  not  to  be  found. 

11.  Laws  whether  mixedly  or  merely  human  are  made  by 
politic  societies:  some,  only  as  those  societies  are  civilly  united; 
some,  as  they  are  spiritually  joined  and  make  such  a  body  as  we 
call  the  church.     Of  laws  human  in  this  later  kind  we  are  to 
speak  in  the  third  book  following.     Let  it  therefore  suffice  thus 
far  to  have  touched  the  force  wherewith  almighty  God  hath  gra- 
ciously endued  our  nature,  and  thereby  enabled  the  same  to  find 
out  both  those  laws  which  all  men  generally  are  for  ever  bound 
to  observe,  and  also  such  as  are  most  fit  for  their  behoof,  who 
lead  their  lives  in  any  ordered  state  of  government. 

12.  Now  besides  that  law  which  simply  concerneth  men  as 
men,  and  that  which  belongeth  unto  them  as  they  are  men  linked 
with  others  in  some  form  of  politic  society,  there  is  a  third  kind 
of  law  which  toucheth  all  such  several  bodies  politic,  so  far  forth 
as  one  of  them  hath  public  commerce  with  another.    And  this 
third  is  the  law  of  nations*    Between  men  and  beasts  there  is  no 
possibility  of  sociable  communion;  because  the  well-spring  of 
that  communion  is  a  natural  delight  which  man  hath  to  trans- 
fuse from  himself  into  others,  and  to  receive  from  others  into 
himself,  especially  those  things  wherein  the  excellency  of  his  kind 
doth  most  consist.     The  chiefest  instrument  of  human  communion 
therefore  is  speech,  because  thereby  we  impart  mutually  one  to 
another  the  conceits  of  our  reasonable  understanding.    And  for 
that  cause  seeing  beasts  are  not  hereof  capable,  forasmuch  as 
with  them  we  can  use  no  such  conference,  they  being  in  degree, 

1  Isaiah  x.  I. 


252  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

although  above  other  creatures  on  earth  to  whom  nature  hath 
denied  sense,  yet  lower  than  to  be  sociable  companions  of  man  to 
whom  nature  hath  given  reason;  it  is  of  Adam  said  that  amongst 
the  beasts  He  found  not  for  himself  any  meet  companion.1  Civil 
society  doth  more  content  the  nature  of  man  than  any  private  kind 
of  solitary  living,  because  in  society  this  good  of  mutual  participa- 
tion is  so  much  larger  than  otherwise.  Herewith  notwithstanding 
we  are  not  satisfied,  but  we  covet  (if  it  might  be)  to  have  a  kind  of 
society  and  fellowship  even  with  all  mankind.  Which  thing 
Socrates  intending  to  signify  professed  himself  a  citizen,  not  of 
this  or  that  commonwealth,  but  of  the  world.  And  an  effect 
of  that  very  natural  desire  in  us  (a  manifest  token  that  we  wish 
after  a  sort  a  universal  fellowship  with  all  men),  appeareth 
by  the  wonderful  delight  men  have,  some  to  visit  foreign  countries, 
some  to  discover  nations  not  heard  of  in  former  ages,  we  all  to 
know  the  affairs  and  dealings  of  other  people,  yea  to  be  in  league 
of  amity  with  them:  and  this  not  only  for  traffic's  sake,  or  to  the 
end  that  when  many  are  confederated  each  may  make  other  the 
more  strong,  but  for  such  cause  also  as  moved  the  Queen  of  Saba 
to  visit  Solomon; 2  and  in  a  word,  because  nature  doth  presume 
that  how  many  men  there  are  in  the  world,  so  many  Gods  as  it 
were  there  are,  or  at  leastwise  such  they  would  be  towards  men. 

13.  Touching  laws  which  are  to  serve  men  in  this  behalf; 
even  as  those  laws  of  reason,  which  (man  retaining  his  original 
integrity)  had  been  sufficient  to  direct  each  particular  person 
in  all  his  affairs  and  duties,  are  not  sufficient  but  require  the  access 
of  other  laws,  now  that  man  and  his  offspring  are  grown  thus 
corrupt  and  sinful;  again,  as  those  laws  of  polity  and  regiment 
which  would  have  served  men  living  in  public  society  together 
with  that  harmless  disposition  which  then  they  should  have  had, 
are  not  able  now  to  serve,  when  men's  iniquity  is  so  hardly  re- 
strained within  any  tolerable  bounds:  in  like  manner,  the  national 
laws  of  mutual  commerce  between  societies  of  that  former  and 
better  quality  might  have  been  other  than  now,  when  nations  are 
so  prone  to  offer  violence,  injury,  and  wrong.  Hereupon  hath 
grown  in  every  of  these  three  kinds  that  distinction  between 
Primary  and  Secondary  laws;  the  one  grounded  upon  sincere,  the 
other  built  upon  depraved  nature.  Primary  laws  of  nations  are 
such  as  concern  embassage,  such  as  belong  to  the  courteous 
entertainment  of  foreigners  and  strangers,  such  as  serve  for 
commodious  traffic,  and  the  like.  Secondary  laws  in  the  same 

1  Gen.  ii.  20. 

2  i  Kings  x.  i;  2  Chron.  ix.  i;  Matt.  xii.  42;  Luke  xi.  31. 


HOOKER  253 

kind  are  such  as  this  present  unquiet  world  is  most  familiarly 
acquainted  with;  I  mean  laws  of  arms,  which  yet  are  much  better 
known  than  kept.  But  what  matter  the  law  of  nations  doth 
contain  I  omit  to  search. 

The  strength  and  virtue  of  that  law  is  such  that  no  particular 
nation  can  lawfully  prejudice  the  same  by  any  their  several 
laws  and  ordinances,  more  than  a  man  by  his  private  resolutions 
the  law  of  the  whole  commonwealth  or  state  wherein  he  liveth. 
For  as  civil  law,  being  the  act  of  the  whole  body  politic,  doth 
therefore  overrule  each  several  part  of  the  same  body;  so  there  is 
no  reason  that  any  one  commonwealth  of  itself  should  to  the  pre- 
judice of  another  annihilate  that  whereupon  the  whole  world 
hath  agreed.  For  which  cause,  the  Lacedaemonians  forbidding 
all  access  of  strangers  into  their  coasts  are  in  that  respect  both  by 
Josephus  and  Theodoret  deservedly  blamed,  as  being  enemies  to 
that  hospitality  which  for  common  humanity's  sake  all  the  nations 
on  earth  should  embrace. 

SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 


Church,  Hooker's  Of  the  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical,  Polity,  Book  I,  "Introduction." 
Lee,  Sidney,  "Richard  Hooker,"  in  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 
Isaac  Walton,  Life  of  Hooker,  in  Works  of  Hooker,  arr.  by  Keble;  Vol.  II, 


Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  pp.  208-212. 
Dowden,  Puritan  and  Anglican,  pp.  69-76. 


GROTIUS 


XH.    HUGO  GROTIUS  (1583-1645) 

INTRODUCTION 

So  far  our  readings  have  been  taken  from  the  works  of  authors 
whose  preoccupation  in  political  reflection  was  with  the  internal 
constitution  of  the  state.  The  major  part  of  the  treatise  from 
which  we  next  make  selection  deals  with  the  laws  governing 
intercourse  between  states.  This  work  is  The  Law  of  War  and 
Peace  of  the  Dutch  jurist,  Hugo  Grotius,  who  wrote  in  the  early 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century.  For  several  centuries  preceding 
Grotius  attempts  had  been  made  to  reach  a  rational  foundation 
for  the  definition  of  the  inter-relations  of  states.  In  particular, 
there  had  been  recognition  of  the  importance  of  establishing  rules 
to  restrict  the  actions  of  states  during  war.  In  such  endeavors 
mediaeval  writers  had  operated  with  two  conceptions  inherited 
from  Roman  jurisprudence.  One  of  these  was  the  conception 
of  natural  law,  which  had  figured  to  such  an  extent  in  scholastic 
discussion.  A  characteristic  element  of  the  notion  of  natural  law 
was  the  applicability  of  its  precepts  to  all  peoples;  for  natural 
law  was  regarded  as  a  dictate  of  human  reason,  which  was  essential- 
ly the  same  among  all  people.  The  other  conception  was  that 
of  jus  gentium,  which  denoted  a  body  of  law  constituted  of  rules 
discovered  to  be  common  to  the  juristic  practice  of  many  different 
peoples.  In  developing  the  relation  between  these  two  concep- 
tions, several  writers  had  given  some  systematic  consideration 
to  the  rights  and  duties  of  political  communities.  But  not  until 
the  sixteenth  century  does  there  appear  to  have  been  wide  accepta- 
tion of  a  clear  differentiation  of  the  idea  of  jus  gentium,  in  the  sense 
of  laws  governing  the  relations  between  nations,  from  the  older 
conception  of  a  body  of  law  common  to  different  nations. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  questions  of  international  ethics 
assumed  paramount  interest;  this  was  due  to  many  circumstances 
of  recent  history — such  as  the  discovery  and  colonization  of  new 
parts  of  the  world,  the  relaxation  in  imperial  and  papal  supervision, 
inter-state  religious  and  dynastic  wars,  the  complication  in  the 
inter-relations  of  the  small  German  principalities.  In  the  solu- 
tion of  such  questions  Catholic  theologians  and  Protestant  jurists 
devoted  special  consideration  to  the  formulation  of  the  precepts 

257 


258  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

of  natural  law.  These  precepts  they  sought  to  discover  in  the 
rules  of  civil  or  canon  law,  in  the  writings  of  earlier  theologians, 
and  also  in  the  practices  of  Christian  nations.  In  these  discussions 
the  idea  of  a  distinct  branch  of  law  for  international  relations  ap- 
peared, and  certain  domains  of  such  law  were  sketched  in  detail. 
None  of  the  writers  clearly  established  his  formulas  either  upon 
universal  principles  of  human  reason,  or  upon  precedents  in  the 
intercourse  of  civilized  states;  but  the  distinction  between  the 
two  sources  was  distinctly  recognized  by  a  few — notably,  the 
Spanish  jurist,  Suarez.1 

Grotius  utilized  and  acknowledged  the  work  of  these  predeces- 
sors. The  great  reputation  and  influence  of  his  De  Jure  Belli  ac 
Pads,  and  his  title  as  founder  of  a  new  science,  may  be  considered 
to  rest,  on  the  one  hand,  upon  the  character  and  life  of  the  author, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  upon  the  qualities  of  the  work.  The  work 
is  notable  for  the  comprehensive  scope  and  systematic  form  of  its 
analysis,  for  the  clear  separation  of  its  proper  field  from  the  con- 
tiguous fields  of  ethics  and  jurisprudence,  and  for  the  author's 
freedom  from  sectarian  bias  in  the  spirit  of  his  discussion. 

Grotius  was  born  in  Delft,  of  a  family  of  some  local  social  and 
political  distinction.  He  was  from  early  youth  a  student  of  classi- 
cal literature  and  philosophy,  and  from  time  to  time  produced 
many  translations,  besides  original  Latin  verses.  He  was  also  a 
lawyer,  held  important  positions  in  the  city  of  Rotterdam  and  in 
the  provincial  governments  of  Holland  and  Zealand,  and  served 
on  special  deputations  from  the  Confederation  to  France  and 
England.  He  became  involved  in  the  sectarian  and  political  con- 
flict in  which  Holland  was  embroiled  during  his  lifetime.  Though 
a  strong  advocate  of  religious  toleration  and  a  worker  for  concilia- 
tion, he  held  the  " free-will"  views  of  the  Arminian  party.  When 
the  stadtholder,  Maurice  of  Nassau,  espoused  the  cause  of  the 
Gomarian  (Calvinistic)  party  (chiefly  because  that  faction  would 
yield  stronger  support  for  his  political  aims),  and  instituted  reli- 
gious prosecution  against  adherents  of  the  opposing  faction, 
Grotius  suffered  imprisonment.  Escaping  from  prison  after  a 
few  years,  Grotius  went  to  Paris,  where  he  was  sustained  by  a 

1  For  brief  sketches  of  the  literature  of  international  law  before  the  time  of 
Grotius,  cf.  Carmichael,  "Grotius  and  the  Literary  History  of  the  Law  of  Na- 
tions," in  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Literature,  Vol.  XIV  (1884); 
Holland,  Studies  in  International  Law,  pp.  1-58;  Wheaton,  History  of  the  Law 
of  Nations  in  Europe  and  America,  pp.  1-67. 


GROTIUS  259 

small  pension  from  Louis  XII,  supplemented  by  gifts  from  some 
friends.  Here  his  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pads  was  published  in  I625.1 
The  motive  of  that  work  appears  in  the  author's  statement  in  the 
prolegomena.  We  appreciate  better  the  significance  of  that  state- 
ment of  purpose  if  we  recall  that  Grotius'  life  had  witnessed  the 
following  events:  the  last  twenty-five  years  of  the  war  of  the 
United  Provinces  against  Spain;  the  continuation  of  civil  war  in 
France,  with  the  assassination  of  Henry  III  and  IV;  the  sectarian 
and  political  troubles  in  England  and  Holland,  with  the  execution 
of  Mary  Stuart  and  the  assassination  of  William  of  Orange;  and 
the  first  part  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 

For  the  history  of  political  philosophy  our  interest,  in  The  Law 
of  War  and  Peace,  is  centered  first  in  the  prolegomena,  in  which 
the  author  lays  the  foundations  of  his  system  in  his  analysis  of 
the  relation  of  natural  law  to  the  "law  of  nations";  and,  secondly, 
in  the  preliminary  discussion,  in  the  main  body  of  the  work, 
of  natural  law  and  of  the  nature  of  the  state  and  of  sovereignty; 
these  latter  subjects  it  was  essential  for  the  author  to  examine 
in  order  to  reach  a  precise  determination  of  what  constituted 
the  capacity  for  possessing  international  rights  and  duties. 

READINGS  FROM  DE  JURE  BELLI  AC  PACIS2 

1.     The  Rational  Basis  of  International  Law  3 

i.  The  civil  law,4  both  that  of  Rome  and  that  of  each  nation 
in  particular,  has  been  treated  of  by  many,  with  a  view  either 

1  The  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pacts  is  an  expansion  of  an  earlier  unpublished  treatise, 
De  Jure  Prada  (first  published  in  1868).    This  earlier  work  was  the  outcome 
of  a  case  in  Grotius'  legal  practice.    The  question  of  the  case  was  as  to  the 
lawfulness  of  the  capture  of  a  Portuguese  prize  by  a  Dutch  ship  in  eastern 
waters  over  which  Portugal  claimed  exclusive  ownership.    This  led  Grotius  to 
a  discussion  of  the  conditions  of  the  lawfulness  of  war,  and  of  the  limits  that 
must  be  put  to  claims  of  dominion  over  the  high  seas.    A  chapter  (of  the  De 
Jure  Pradce}  on  the  latter  topic  formed  also  the  basis  for  a  third  work — the 
Mare  Liber  um;  this  was  published  in  1609,  when  the  dispute  between  the 
United  Provinces  and  Portugal  over  the  question  of  the  freedom  of  the  seas 
was  at  an  acute  stage. 

2  The  translation  is  made  from  the  text  as 'given  in  Whe well's  edition,  Cam- 
bridge University  Press,  1853.    Whewell's  abridged  translation,  which  accom- 
panies that  text,  has  been  used  freely  and  adopted  verbatim  in  many  parts;  but 
in  many  instances  it  has  seemed  necessary,  in  the  interest  of  clearness  and 
correctness,  to  translate  anew. 

Grotius'  quotations  and  historical  citations  are  generally  omitted. 

3  From  the  Prolegomena. 

4  Jus  will  be  uniformly  rendered  as  "law"  in  the  passages  from  Grotius; 
and  wherever  the  word  "law"  appears  in  this  translation  it  stands  for  jus  in 
the  original,  save  where  I  indicate  otherwise. 


260  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

to  elucidate  it,  through  commentaries,  or  to  present  it  in  a  com- 
pendious form.  But  that  law  which  regards  the  relations  between 
peoples,  or  between  rulers  of  peoples,  whether  it  proceed  from 
nature  or  be  instituted  by  divine  commands  or  introduced  by 
custom  and  tacit  agreement,  has  been  touched  on  by  few,  and  has 
by  no  one  been  treated  as  a  whole  and  in  an  orderly  manner.  And 
yet  that  this  be  done  is  of  concern  to  the  human  race. 

3.  And  such  a  work  is  the  more  necessary  because  of  the  fact 
that  persons  in  our  own  time,  as  well  as  in  former  ages,  have  held 
in  contempt  what  has  been  done  in  this  province  of  jurisprudence, 
as  if  no  such  thing  existed,  except  as  a  mere  name.  Every  one  is 
familiar  with  the  saying  of  Euphemius  in  Thucydides,  that  for  a 
king  or  city  who  has  authority  to  maintain,  nothing  is  unjust 
which  is  useful;  and  to  the  same  effect  is  the  saying  that  with 
good  fortune  equity  is  where  strength  is,  and  that  the  common- 
wealth cannot  be  administered  without  doing  some  wrong.  To 
this  we  add  that  the  controversies  which  arise  between  peoples 
and  between  kings  commonly  have  war  as  their  arbiter.  But 
that  war  has  nothing  to  do  with  laws  is  not  only  the  opinion  of 
the  ignorant;  even  wise  and  learned  men  often  let  fall  expressions 
which  support  such  an  opinion.  For  nothing  is  more  common 
than  to  place  laws  and  arms  in  opposition  to  each  other.  .  .  . 

5.  Since  our  discussion  of  law  is  undertaken  in  vain  if  there  is 
no  law,  it  will  serve  both  to  commend  and  fortify  our  work  if  we 
refute  briefly  this  very  grave  error.    And  that  we  may  not  have  to 
deal  with  a  mob  of  opponents,  let  us  appoint  an  advocate  to  speak 
for  them.    And  whom  can  we  select  fitter  than  Carneades,1  who 
had  arrived  at  the  point — the  supreme  aim  of  his  academic  philos- 
ophy— where  he  could  use  the  strength  of  his  eloquence  for  false- 
hood as  easily  as  for  truth?    When  he  undertook  to  argue  against 
justice — especially,  the  justice  of  which  we  here  treat,  he  found  no 
argument  stronger  than  this:  that  men  had,  as  utility  prompted, 
established  laws,  differing  among  different  peoples  as  manners 
differed,  and,  among  the  same  people,  often  changing  with  the 
change  of  times;  but  that  there  is  no  natural  law,  since  all  men, 
as  well  as  other  animals,  are  impelled  by  nature  to  seek  their  own 
advantage;  and  that  either  there  is  no  justice,  or  if  it  exist,  it  is 
the  highest  folly,  since  through  it  one  harms  oneself  in  consulting 
the  interests  of  others. 

6.  But  what  this  philosopher  says,  and,  following  him,  the 
poet — "Nature  cannot  distinguish  the  just  from  the  unjust,"2 

1  A  Greek  skeptic  philosopher  of  the  second  century,  B.  C. 

2  "Nee  natura  potest  justo  secernere  iniquum."  Horat.  I.  Sat.  iii.  113. 


GROTIUS  261 

must  by  no  means  be  admitted.  For  though  man  is  indeed  an 
animal,  he  is  an  uncommon  animal,  differing  much  more  from  all 
other  animals  than  they  differ  from  one  another;  this  is  evidenced 
in  many  actions  peculiar  to  the  human  species.  Among  the 
attributes  peculiar  to  man  is  the  desire  for  society — that  is  for 
communion  with  his  fellow-men,  and  not  for  communion  simply, 
but  for  a  tranquil  association  and  one  suited  to  the  quality  of  his 
intellect;  this  the  Stoics  called  oiKaWiv.  Therefore,  the  state- 
ment that  by  nature  every  animal  is  impelled  to  seek  only  its  own 
advantage  cannot  be  conceded  in  this  general  form. 

7.  Even  in  other  animals  their  desires  for  their  own  good  are 
tempered  by  regard  for  their  offspring  and  for  others  of  their  spe- 
cies; this  we  believe  to  proceed  from  some  intelligence  outside  of 
themselves;1  for  with  regard  to  other  acts  not  at  all  more  difficult 
than  these  an  equal  degree  of  intelligence  does  not  appear.    The 
same  is  to  be  said  of  infants,  in  whom,  previous  to  all  teaching, 
there  is  manifested  a  certain  disposition  to  do  good  to  others,  as  is 
sagaciously  remarked  by  Plutarch ;  for  example,  at  that  age  com- 
passion breaks  forth  spontaneously.    A  man  of  full  age  knows  how 
to  act  similarly  in  similar  cases,  and  he  has  that  exceptional  craving 
for  society,2  whose  peculiar  instrument,  language,  he  alone  among 
all  animals  possesses;  accordingly,  he  has  the  faculty  of  knowing 
and  acting  according  to  general  principles;  the  tendencies  which 
agree  with  this  faculty  do  not  belong  to  all  animals,  but  are  the 
peculiar  properties  of  human  nature. 

8.  This  concern  for  society,3  which  we  have  now  stated  in  a 
rude  manner,  and  which  is  in  agreement  with  the  nature  of  the 
human  intellect,  is  the  source  of  law,  properly  so  called,  of  which  we 
are  speaking.     It  is  law  that  determines  the  abstention  from  an- 
other's property;  the  restitution  of  another's  goods  which  we  have 
in  our  possession  and  of  any  gain  we  have  derived  from  such  posses- 
sion; the  obligation  to  fulfill  promises;  the  reparation  for  damage 
wrongfully  done;  and  the  retribution  of  punishments. 

9.  From  this  signification  of  law  there  has  flowed  another 
larger  meaning.     For  man  is  superior  to  other  animals  not  only 
in  the  social  impulse,  of  which  we  have  spoken,  but  also  in  his 
judgment  in  estimating  what  is  pleasant  and  what  is  injurious — 
not  only  for  the  present  but  for  the  future  also,  and  the  things 
which  may  lead  to  good  or  to  ill.      We  know,  therefore,  that,  in 
accordance  with  the  quality  of  the  human  intellect,  it  is  congruous 

1  "Ex  principle  aliquo  intelligente  extrinseco." 

2  "Societatis  appetitu  excellente." 
s  "Societatis  custodia." 


262  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

to  human  nature  to  follow,  in  such  matters,  a  judgment  rightly 
formed  and  not  to  be  misled  by  fear  or  by  the  enticement  of  present 
pleasure,  or  to  be  carried  away  by  heedless  impulse;  and  that  what 
is  plainly  repugnant  to  such  judgment  is  likewise  contrary  to 
natural  law,  that  is,  to  natural  human  law. 

10.  And  here  comes  the  question  of  a  wise  assignment  in 
bestowing  upon  each  individual  and  each  body  of  men  the  things 
which  peculiarly  belong  to  them;  this  disposition  will  sometimes 
prefer  the  wiser  man  to  the  less  wise,  the  neighbor  to  a  stranger, 
the  poor  man  to  the  rich  man,  according  as  the  nature  of  each 
act  and  each  matter  requires.     This  question  some  have  made  a 
part  of  law,  strictly  and  properly  so  called;  though  law,  properly 
speaking,  has  a  very  different  nature;  for  it  consists  in  this — that 
each  should  leave  to  another  what  is  his  and  give  to  him  what  is 
his  due. 

1 1 .  What  we  have  said  would  still  be  in  point  even  if  we  should 
grant,  what  we  cannot  without  great  wickedness,  that  there  is  no 
God,  or  that  He  bestows  no  regard  upon  human  affairs.     Since 
we  are  assured  of  the  contrary,  partly  by  our  reason  and  partly 
by  constant  tradition,  confirmed  by  many  arguments  and  by 
miracles  attested  by  all  ages,  it  follows  that  God,  as  our  creator 
to  whom  we  owe  our  being  and  all  that  we  have,  is  to  be  obeyed 
by  us  without  exception,  especially  since  He  has  in  many  ways 
shown  himself  to  be  supremely  good  and  supremely  powerful. 
Wherefore,  He  is  able  to  bestow  upon  those  who  obey  Him  the 
highest  rewards,  even  eternal  rewards,  since  He  himself  is  eternal; 
and  He  must  be  believed  to  be  willing  to  do  this,  particularly 
if  He  has  promised  to  do  so  in  plain  words;  and  this  we  as  Christians 
believe,  convinced  by  the  indubitable  faith  of  testimonies. 

12.  And  here  we  find  another  origin  of  law,  besides  that 
natural  source  of  which  we  have  spoken;  it  is  the  free  will  of  God, 
to  which  our  reason  indisputably  tells  us  we  must  submit  our- 
selves.    But  even  natural  law — whether  it  be  the  natural  social 
law,  or  law  in  the  looser  meaning  of  which  we  have  spoken — may 
yet  be  rightfully  ascribed  to  God,  though  it  proceed  from  the 
principles  of  man's  inner  nature;  for  it  was  in  accordance  with  His 
will  that  such  principles  came  to  exist  within  us.     In  this  sense 
Chrysippus  and  the  Stoics  said  that  the  origin  of  law  was  not  to 
be  sought  in  any  other  source  than  Jove  himself;  and  it  may  be 
conjectured  that  the  Latins  took  the  word  jus  from  the  name  Jove. 

13.  It  may  be  added  that  God  has  made  these  principles  more 
manifest  by  the  commandments  which  He  has  given  in  order  that 
they  might  be  understood  by  those  whose  minds  have  weaker 


GROTIUS  263 

powers  of  reasoning.  And  He  has  controlled  the  aberrations  of 
our  impulses,  which  drive  us  this  way  and  that,  to  the  injury  of 
ourselves  and  of  others;  bridling  our  more  vehement  passions,  and 
restraining  them  within  due  limits. 

15.  In  the  next  place,  since  it  is  conformable  to  natural  law 
to  observe  compacts  (for  some  mode  of  obliging  themselves  was 
necessary  among  men,  and  no  other  natural  mode  can  be  imagined) 
civil  rights  were  derived  from  that  very  source.     For  those  who 
joined  any  community,  or  put  themselves  in  subjection  to  any 
man  or  men,  either  expressly  promised  or  from  the  nature  of  the 
case  must  have  been  understood  to  promise  tacitly,  that  they  would 
conform  to  that  which  either  the  majority  of  the  community,  or 
those  to  whom  power  was  assigned,  should  determine. 

1 6.  And  therefore  what  Carneades  said,  and  what  has  been 
said  by  others — that  utility  is  the  mother  of  justice  and  right — is, 
if  we  are  to  speak  accurately,  not  true.    For  the  mother  of  natural 
law  is  human  nature  itself,  which  would  lead  us  to  desire  mutual 
society  even  though  we  were  not  driven  thereto  by  other  wants. 
The  mother  of  civil  law  is  obligation  by  compact;  and  since  com- 
pacts derive  their  force  from  natural  law,  nature  may  be  said  to 
be  the  great-grandmother  of  civil  law.     But  utility  supplements 
(accedit)  natural  law.     For  the  Author  of  nature  ordained  that 
we,  as  individuals,  should  be  weak  and  in  need  of  many  things 
for  living  well,  in  order  that  we  might  be  the  more  impelled  to 
cherish  society.     But  utility  furnished  the  occasion  for  civil  law; 
for  that  association  or  subjection  of  which  we  have  spoken,  was 
at  the  first  instituted  for  the  sake  of  some  utility.    Accordingly, 
those  who  prescribe  laws  for  others  ordinarily  design,  or  should 
design,  some  utility  in  their  laws. 

17.  But  just  as  the  laws  of  each  state  regard  the  utility  of  that 
state,  so  also  between  all  states,  or,  at  least,  between  most  of 
them,  certain  laws  could  be  established  by  consent — and  it  appears 
that  laws  have  been  established — which  regard  the  utility,  not  of 
particular  communities  but  of  the  great  aggregate  of  communities. 
And  this  is  what  is  called  the  law  of  nations  (jus  gentium),  in  so  far 
as  we  distinguish  it  from  natural  law.     This  part  of  law  is  omitted 
by  Carneades,  who  divides  all  law  into  natural  law^and  the  civil 
law  of  particular  peoples ;  although  as  he  was  about  to  treat  of  that 
law  which  obtains  between  one  people  and  another  (for  he  sub- 
joins a  discussion  upon  war  and  acquisitions  by  war),  he  was 
especially  called  upon  to  make  mention  of  law  of  this  kind. 

1 8.  Moreover,  Carneades  improperly  traduces  justice  when  he 
calls  it  folly.     For  since,  as  he  himself  acknowledges,  the  citizen 


264  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

is  not  foolish  who  in  a  state  obeys  the  civil  law,  although  in  conse- 
quence of  such  respect  for  the  law  he  may  lose  some  things  which 
are  useful  to  him,  so  too  a  people  is  not  to  be  deemed  foolish  which 
does  not  estimate  its  interests  so  highly  as  to  disregard  the  com- 
mon laws  between  peoples  for  the  sake  of  its  own  advantage.  The 
reason  is  the  same  in  both  cases.  For  as  a  citizen  who  disobeys 
the  civil  law  for  the  sake  of  present  utility  destroys  that  in  which 
the  perpetual  utility  of  himself  and  his  posterity  is  bound  up,  so 
too  a  people  which  violates  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  nations  breaks 
down  the  bulwark  of  its  own  tranquillity  for  future  time.  Even 
though  no  utility  were  to  be  looked  for  from  the  observation  of 
law,  such  a  course  would  be  one  not  of  folly  but  of  wisdom,  to 
which  we  feel  ourselves  drawn  by  nature. 

19.  Wherefore,  that  saying  that  we  were  compelled  to  estab- 
lish laws  from  fear  of  wrong,1  is  not  universally  true;  this  opinion 
is  explained  by  a  speaker  in  Plato's  dialogues,  who  says  that  laws 
were  introduced  because  of  the  fear  of  receiving  wrong,  and  that 
men  are  driven  to  respect  justice  by  a  certain  compulsion.     But 
this  applies  only  to  those  institutions  and  statutes  which  were 
devised  for  the  more  easy  enforcement  of  law;  as  when  many, 
individually  weak,  fearing  oppression  by  those  who  were  stronger, 
combined  to  establish  judicial  authorities  and  to  protect  them  by 
their  common  strength,  so  that  those  whom  they  could  not  resist 
singly,  they  might,  united,  control.     Only  in  this  sense  may  we 
properly  accept  the  statement  that  law  is  that  which  pleases  the 
stronger  party:  namely,  that  we  are  to  understand  that  law  does 
not  attain  its  external  end  unless  it  has  force  as  its  servant.     Thus 
Solon  accomplished  great  things,  as  he  himself  said,  by  linking 
together  force  and  law.2 

20.  But  even  law  that  is  unsupported  by  force  is  not  destitute 
of  all  effect;  for  justice  brings  serenity  to  the  conscience,  while 
injustice  brings  torments  and  remorse  such  as  Plato  describes  as 
afflicting  the  hearts  of  tyrants.     The  common  feeling  of  upright 
men  approves  justice  and  condemns  injustice.     The  important 
point  is  that  justice  has  for  its  friend,  God,  while  injustice  has  Him 
as  an  enemy;  He  reserves  his  judgments  for  another  life,  yet  in 
such  manner  that  He  often  exhibits  their  power  in  this  life;  we 
have  many  examples  of  this  in  history. 

21.  The  error  which  many  commit  who,  while  they  require 
justice  in  citizens,  hold  it  to  be  superfluous  in  a  people  or  the  ruler 
of  a  people,  is  caused  primarily  by  this  fact:  they  are  regarding 

1  "Jura  inventa  metu  injusti  faleare  necesse  est."   (Horace,  I.  Sat.  iii.) 
*  "  'Ofu>v  pltjv  re  Kal  Slicrjv  <rvvapfji.6<r(tt." 


GROTIUS  265 

only  the  utility  which  arises  from  the  law.  This  utility  is  evident 
in  the  case  of  citizens,  who  individually  are  too  weak  to  secure  their 
own  protection.  Great  states,  on  the  other  hand,  which  seem  to 
embrace  within  themselves  all  that  is  necessary  to  support  life,  do 
not  appear  to  have  need  of  that  virtue  which  regards  extraneous 
parties  and  is  called  justice. 

22.  But — not  to  repeat  what  I  have  already  said,  that  law  is 
not  established  for  the  sake  of  utility  alone — there  is  no  state  so 
strong  that  it  may  not  at  some  time  need  the  aid  of  others  external 
to  itself,  either  in  the  way  of  commerce  or  in  order  to  repel  the 
force  of  many  nations  combined  against  it.  Hence  we  see  that 
alliances  are  sought  even  by  the  most  powerful  peoples  and  kings; 
the  force  of  such  alliances  is  entirely  destroyed  by  those  who  con- 
fine law  within  the  boundaries  of  a  state.  It  is  most  true  that 
everything  becomes  uncertain  if  we  withdraw  from  law. 

28.  Since,  for  the  reasons  which  I  have  stated,  I  hold  it  to  be 
completely  proved  that  there  is  between  nations  a  common  law 
which  is  of  force  with  respect  to  war  and  in  war,  I  have  had  many 
and  grave  reasons  why  I  should  write  a  work  on  that  subject. 
For  I  saw  prevailing  throughout  the  Christian  world  a  license 
in  making  war  of  which  even  barbarous  nations  would  have  been 
ashamed,  recourse  being  had  to  arms  for  slight  reasons  or  for  no 
reason;  and  when  arms  were  once  taken  up,  all  reverence  for  divine 
and  human  law  was  lost,  just  as  if  men  were  henceforth  authorized 
to  commit  all  crimes  without  restraint. 

39.  ...  It  remains  now  that  I  briefly  explain  with  what  aids 
and  with  what  care  I  have  undertaken  this  work.     In  the  first 
place,  it  was  my  object  to  refer  the  truth  of  the  things  which  belong 
to  natural  law  to  certain  notions  so  certain  that  no  one  can  deny 
them  without  doing  violence  to  his  own  nature.     For  the  prin- 
ciples of  that  law,  if  you  attend  to  them  rightly,  are  of  themselves 
patent  and  evident,  almost  in  the  same  way  as  things  which  we 
perceive  by  our  external  senses;  for  these  do  not  deceive  us,  if  the 
organs  are  rightly  disposed  and  other  necessary  things  are  not 
wanting.  .  .  . 

40.  For  the  demonstration  of  natural  law  I  have  used  the 
testimonies  of  philosophers,  historians,  poets,  and  finally  orators. 
Not  that  these  are  to  be  trusted  indiscriminately;  for  they  are 
ordinarily  writing  to  serve  their  sect,  their  argument,  or  their  cause. 
But  when  many,  writing  in  different  times  and  places,  affirm  the 
same  thing  as  true,  their  unanimity  must  be  referred  to  some  uni- 
versal cause,  which,  in  the  questions  with  which  we  are  here  con- 


266  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

cerned,  can  be  no  other  than  either  a  right  deduction  proceeding 
from  principles  of  nature,  or  some  common  agreement.  The 
former  cause  points  to  the  law  of  nature,  the  latter  to  the  law  of 
nations;  the  difference  between  these  two  is  to  be  discerned  not  in 
the  testimonies  themselves  (for  writers  everywhere  confound  the 
law  of  nature  and  the  law  of  nations),  but  in  the  quality  of  the 
matter.  For  what  can  not  be  deduced  from  certain  principles  by 
unerring  reasoning,  and  yet  is  seen  to  be  observed  everywhere,  must 
have  its  origin  in  free  consent. 

46.  Passages  of  history  have  a  two-fold  use  in  our  argument: 
they  supply  both  examples  and  judgments.     In  proportion  as 
examples  belong  to  better  times  and  better  nations,  they  have 
greater  authority;  we  have  therefore  preferred  the  examples  from 
ancient  Greece  and  Rome.     Nor  are  judgments  to  be  despised, 
especially  when  many  of  them  agree;  for  natural  law  is,  as  we  have 
said,  to  be  proved  by  such  concord;  and  the  law  of  nations  can  be 
proved  in  no  other  manner. 

47.  The  opinions  of  poets  and  orators  have  not  so  much  weight ; 
and  these  we  often  use  not  so  much  to  gain  confirmation  from  them 
as  to  give  to  what  we  are  trying  to  say  some  ornamentation  from 
their  modes  of  expression. 

48.  The  books  written  by  men  inspired  by  God,  or  approved 
by  them,  I  often  use  as  authority,  with  a  distinction  between 
the  Old  and  the  New  Testament.  .  .  . 

2.     The  Law  of  Nature1 

III.  By  entitling  our  treatise,  Concerning  the  Law  of  War, 
we  mean,  in  the  first  place,  to  imply  the  discussion  of  the  ques- 
tions whether  any  war  is  lawful  (justum),  and  what  is  lawful  in 
war.     For  jus  here  means  simply  what  is  lawful,  and  that  rather 
in  a  negative  than  in  a  positive  sense,  so  that  that  comes  within 
the  connotation  of  law,  which  is  not  "unlawful.     That  is  unlawful 
which    is    contrary    to    the    nature    of    a    society    of    rational 
creatures.  .  .  . 

IV.  Law  has  another  signification,  derived  from  the  former, 
and  relating  to  a  person.     In  this  sense  law,  or  right,2  is  a  moral 
quality  by  which  a  person  is  competent  rightfully  to  have  or  do 
a  certain  thing.     Right  in  this  sense  belongs  to  a  person,  though 
sometimes  it  follows  a  thing,  as  easements  upon  an  estate.     Such 

1  From  Bk.  I,  ch.  i,  sees,  iii-iv,  ix-x,  xii. 

2  It  is  necessary  in  this  paragraph  to  translate  jus  as  "right,"  for  jits  as  used 
here  has  a  meaning  that  in  English  is  never  expressed  by  "law." 


GROTIUS  267 

rights  are  called  real  rights,  in  comparison  with  others  which  are 
merely  personal ;  not  that  they  do  not  pertain  to  a  person,  but  that 
they  belong  only  to  the  person  who  possesses  a  certain  thing.  .  .  . 

IX.  Law  has  a  third  signification,  meaning  positive  law  (lex} 
in  its  broadest  sense,  namely,  a  rule  of  moral  acts  obliging  to 
what  is  right  (rectum}.     "Obliging"  is  essential  in  this  significa- 
tion; for  mere  counsel  or  advice,  however  good,  is  not  included 
in  the  concept  of  lex  or  jus.     Permission,  moreover,  is  not  an  act 
of  law  (lex) ,  properly  speaking,  but  rather  the  negation  of  its  action, 
except  in  so  far  as  it  obliges  other  persons  not  to  impede  him 
to  whom  the  permission  is  given.     Moreover,  we  say  obliging  to 
what  is  right,  not  to  what  is  just ;  for  law  in  this  signification  does 
not  include  merely  justice,  but  the  matter  of  other  virtues  also. 
Yet  what  is  right  is  sometimes  loosely  called  lawful. 

The  best  distinction  of  law  in  this  general  sense  is  that  made 
by  Aristotle,  into  natural  law  and  voluntary — that  is,  positive  or 
enacted — law.  .  .  . 

X.  Natural  law  is  the  dictate  of  right  reason,   indicating 
that  any  act,  from  its  agreement  or  disagreement  with  the  rational 
nature,  has  in  it  moral  necessity  or  moral  turpitude;  and  conse- 
quently that  such  act  is  commanded  or  forbidden  by  God,  the 
author  of  nature.1 

Acts  concerning  which  there  is  such  a  dictate  are  obligatory 
or  illicit  in  themselves,  and  are  therefore  understood  as  neces- 
sarily commanded  or  forbidden  by  God;  in  this  character  the  law 
of  nature  differs,  not  only  from  human  law,  but  also  from  positive 
divine  law;  for  the  latter  does  not  command  or  forbid  acts  which 
are  in  themselves  and  by  their  own  nature  obligatory  or  unlawful, 
but  by  commanding  them  makes  them  obligatory,  and  by  for- 
bidding them  makes  them  unlawful. 

In  order  to  understand  the  law  of  nature,  we  must  add  that  some 
things  are  said  to  be  according  to  the  law  of  nature,  which  are  not 
so  properly,  but,  as  the  scholastics  love  to  say,  reductively,  the 
law  of  nature  not  opposing  them ;  as  we  have  said  that  some  things 
are  called  just  which  are  merely  not  unjust.  And  again  by  an 
abuse  of  expression,  some  things  are  said  to  be  according  to  the 
law  of  nature  which  reason  shows  to  be  decent,  though  not 
obligatory.  .  .  . 

It  is  to  be  remarked  also  that  the  law  of  nature  deals  not  only 
with  things  which  are  outside  of  (citra)  the  human  will,  but  also 

l"Jus  naturale  est  dictatum  rectae  rationis,  indicans  actui  alicui,  ex  ejus 
convenientia  aut  disconvenientia  cum  ipsa  natura  rational!  ac  social!,  inesse 
moralem  turpitudinem,  aut  necessitatem  moralem,  ac  consequenter  ab  auctore 
naturae  Deo  talem  actum  aut  vetari,  aut  praecipi." 


268  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

with  things  produced  by  the  act  of  man.  Thus  property,  as  it 
now  exists,  is  the  result  of  human  will;  but  being  once  introduced, 
the  law  of  nature  itself  shows  that  it  is  wrong  for  me  to  take  what 
is  yours  against  your  will.  .  .  . 

The  law  of  nature  is  so  immutable  that  it  cannot  be  changed 
even  by  God  himself.  For  though  the  power  of  God  be  immense, 
there  are  some  things  to  which  it  does  not  extend;  because  if  we 
speak  of  such  things  being  done,  our  words  are  mere  words  and  have 
no  meaning,  being  self-contradictory.  Thus  God  himself  cannot 
make  twice  two  not  to  be  four;  and  in  like  manner  He  cannot 
make  that  which,  according  to  reason,  is  intrinsically  bad,  not  be 
bad.  For  as  the  essence  of  things,  by  virtue  of  which  they  exist,  does 
not  depend  on  anything  else,  so  is  it  with  the  properties  which  follow 
necessarily  that  essence;  such  a  property  is  the  baseness  of  certain 
actions,  as  compared  with  the  nature  of  a  being  enjoying  sound 
reason.  So  God  himself  allows  himself  to  be  judged  by  this  rule. 

Yet  sometimes,  in  acts  directed  by  the  law  of  nature,  there  is  an 
appearance  of  change,  which  may  mislead  the  unwary;  when  in 
fact  it  is  not  the  law  of  nature  which  is  changed,  but  the  thing 
about  which  that  law  is  concerned.  Thus  if  a  creditor  gives  me 
a  receipt  for  my  debt,  I  am  no  longer  bound  to  pay  him;  not  that 
the  law  of  nature  has  ceased  to  command  me  to  pay  what  I  owe, 
but  because  I  have  ceased  to  owe  it.  So  if  God  command  any  one 
to  be  slain  or  his  goods  to  be  taken,  this  does  not  make  lawful 
homicide  or  theft,  which  words  involve  crime;  but  the  act  will 
no  longer  be  homicide  or  theft,  being  authorized  by  the  supreme 
Lord  of  life  and  of  goods. 

Furthermore,  some  things  are  according  to  the  law  of  nature, 
not  simply,  but  in  a  certain  state  of  things.  Thus  community 
in  the  use  of  things  was  natural  until  property  was  established; 
and  the  right  of  getting  possession  of  one's  own  by  force  existed 
before  the  time  of  instituted  law. 

XII.  That  there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  law  of  nature  is  com- 
monly proved  both  a  priori  and  a  posteriori,  the  former  being  the 
more  subtle,  the  latter,  the  more  popular  proof.  It  is  proved 
a  priori  by  showing  the  necessary  agreement  or  disagreement  of 
anything  with  rational  and  social  nature.  It  is  proved  a  posteriori 
when  by  certain  or  very  probable  accounts  we  find  anything 
accepted  as  natural  law  among  all  nations,  or  at  least  among  the 
more  civilized  nations.  For  a  universal  effect  requires  a  universal 
cause;  now  such  a  universal  belief  can  hardly  have  any  cause 
except  the  common  opinion  of  mankind.  .  .  . 


CROTIUS  269 

5.     The  State  and  Sovereignty  l 

XIII.  We  have  said  that  there  is  a  second  species  of  law, 
namely,  voluntary  or  positive  law;  and  this  is  either  human  or 
divine. 

XIV.  We  will  take  up  human  law  first,  as  more  widely  known. 
This  is  either  civil  law,  or  law  in  a  wider  sphere,  or  law  in  a  nar- 
rower sphere.     Civil  law  is  that  which  proceeds  from  the  civil 
authority.     Civil   authority   is   that   which    governs  the   state. 
The  state  is  a  perfect  association  of  free  men,  united  for  the 
sake  of  enjoying  the  benefits  of  law  and  for  their  common  ad- 
vantage.2  Law  in  a  narrower  sphere,  and  not  derived  from  civil 
authority,  though  subject  to  it,  is  various,  as  paternal  precepts, 
the  commands  of  a  master,  and  the  like.     Law  in  a  wider  sphere 
is  the  law  of  nations — namely,  that  law  which  has  received  an 
obligatory  force  from  the  wul  of  all,  or  of  many,  nations.     I 
have  added  "or  of  many,"  because  scarce  any  law,  except  natural 
law  (which  is  often  also  called  j us  gentium) ,  is  found  common  to 
all  nations.     Indeed  that  is  often  the  law  of  nations  in  one  part 
of  the  world  which  is  not  so  in  another  part,  as  we  shall  show 
when  we  come  to  speak  of  captivity  and  postliminium.  .  .  . 

VII.8  That  power  is  called  sovereign  (summa)  whose  acts 
are  not  subject  to  the  law  of  another,  so  that  they  can  be  rendered 
void  by  the  act  of  any  other  human  will.  When  I  say  "any 
other,"  I  exclude  him  who  exercises  the  sovereign  authority;  for 
he  may  change  his  will,  as  may  likewise  his  successor,  who  enjoys 
the  same  rights  and  therefore  has  the  same  authority.  Let  us 
see  then  in  what  this  sovereign  power  resides.  That  in  which  a 
power  inheres  may  be  either  the  general  or  the  special  possessor 
of  the  power;  thus  the  power  of  vision  is  possessed  by  the  body  in 
general,  but  in  the  special  sense  by  the  eye.  In  like  manner 
sovereignty  inheres  in  general  in  the  state,  which  we  have  before 
described  as  the  perfect  community. 

We  therefore  exclude  peoples  which  have  put  themselves  in 
subjection  to  another  people,  such  as  were  the  provinces  of  the 
Romans.  Such  peoples  are  not  by  themselves  a  state,  but  are  the 
inferior  members  of  a  great  state,  as  servants  are  members  of  a 
family.  Again,  it  sometimes  happens  that  several  peoples  have 
the  same  head,  though  each  of  these  peoples  constitutes  a  perfect 

1  From  Bk.  I,  ch.  i,  sees,  xiii-xiv;  ch.  iii,  sees,  vii-xiv,  xvi-xviii. 
2"Est  autem  civitas  ccetus  perfectus  liberorum  hominum,  juris  fruendi  et 
communis  utilitatis  causa  sociatus." 
»Ch.  iii. 


270  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

community;  for  though  several  bodies  cannot  have  one  head  in  the 
natural  person,  they  may  in  the  moral  person,  for  in  the  latter  the 
same  individual  may  be  separately  regarded  as  the  head  in  his 
relation  to  several  distinct  bodies.  Of  this  thing  we  have  an 
indication  in  the  fact  that  when  the  reigning  house  becomes 
extinct  the  right  of  government  reverts  to  each  people  separately. 
And  thus  it  may  happen  that  several  states  are  combined  in  a 
close  federal  connection  and  thus  make  one  system  (a-va-rrjfjLa) , 
and  yet  none  loses  its  status  as  a  perfect  community. 

Therefore,  the  possessor  of  sovereignty  in  general  is  the  state, 
understood  in  the  way  we  have  described.  The  possessor  in  the 
special  sense  is  a  person  or  group  of  persons,  according  to  the  laws 
and  customs  of  each  particular  nation. 

VIII.  And  here  we  must  first  reject  the  opinion  of  those  who 
say  that  sovereignty  everywhere  and  without  exception  belongs 
to  the  people,  so  that  the  people  have  authority  to  coerce  and 
punish  kings  when  they  abuse  their  power.  What  evil  this 
opinion  has  caused,  and  may  yet  cause,  no  wise  man  can  fail  to 
see.  We  refute  it  with  these  arguments.  A  man  may  by  his  own 
act  make  himself  the  slave  of  any  one,  as  appears  by  the  Hebrew 
and  the  Roman  law.  Why  then  may  not  a  people  do  the  same, 
so  as  to  transfer  the  whole  right  of  governing  it  to  one  or  more 
persons?  And  it  is  not  to  the  purpose  to  say  that  we  are  not  to 
presume  such  a  fact ;  for  the  question  is  not  what  is  to  be  presumed 
in  cases  of  doubt,  but  what  may  be  lawfully  done.  Nor  is  it  to  the 
purpose  to  allege  the  inconveniences  which  follow  or  may  follow 
such  a  course;  for  whatever  form  of  government  you  take,  you  will 
never  escape  all  inconvenience. 

But  as  there  are  many  ways  of  living,  one  better  than  another, 
and  each  man  is  free  to  choose  which  of  them  he  pleases,  so  each 
nation  may  choose  what  form  of  government  it  will;  and  its  right 
in  this  matter  is  not  to  be  measured  by  the  excellence  of  this  or 
that  form,  concerning  which  opinions  may  be  various,  but  by 
its  choice. 

Nor  is  it  difficult  to  conceive  causes  why  a  people  may  resign  the 
whole  power  of  its  own  government  and  transfer  it  to  another; 
as,  for  example,  if  it  be  in  great  peril  and  cannot  find  a  defender 
on  other  conditions;  or  if  it  be  in  want  and  cannot  otherwise 
obtain  sustenance.  So  the  Campanians  of  old,  driven  by  want, 
submitted  themselves  to  the  Romans;  and  some  other  peoples 
which  wished  to  do  so  were  not  accepted.  What  then  prevents  a 
people  from  giving  itself  up  to  some  very  powerful  man  in  the 
same  manner?  Or  again,  it  may  happen  that  a  large  landowner 


GROTIUS  271 

will  not  allow  persons  to  dwell  on  his  land  on  any  other  condition; 
or  if  any  one  have  a  large  body  of  slaves,  he  may  manumit  them 
on  condition  of  their  being  his  subjects  and  paying  his  taxes.  .  .  . 

Add  to  this  that,  as  Aristotle  says,  some  men  are  by  nature 
slaves,  fitted  for  servitude,  so  also  some  nations  are  more  prone 
to  be  governed  than  to  govern.  So  the  Cappadocians  seemed 
to  have  felt  when  they  refused  the  liberty  offered  by  the  Romans 
and  declared  that  they  could  not  live  without  a  king.1  .  .  . 

Moreover  civil  authority,  or  the  right  of  governing,  may  be 
acquired  by  legitimate  war,  just  as  private  property  may  be. 

What  we  have  said  above  applies  not  only  in  the  case  of  gov- 
ernment by  a  single  ruler,  but  also  where  authority  is  in  the  hands 
of  a  superior  few,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  common  people.  And 
can  any  state  be  found  so  popular  that  some  are  not  excluded 
from  public  deliberations,  as  strangers,  paupers,  women  and 
children? 

Some  peoples  have  under  them  other  peoples  who  are  not  less 
subject  than  if  they  were  under  kings.  Thu&  arose  the  question: 
Is  the  Collatine  people  its  own  master?  And  the  Campanians, 
when  they  had  given  themselves  up  to  the  Romans,  are  spoken 
of  as  not  being  their  own  masters.  .  .  .  That  there  are  kings 
who  are  not  subject  to  the  will  of  the  people,  even  taken  as  a  whole, 
both  sacred  and  profane  history  testify.*  .  .  . 

The  arguments  that  kings  are  responsible  to  the  people  are 
not  difficult  to  answer.  First,  the  assertion  that  he  who  estab- 
lishes another  in  authority  is  superior  to  the  person  so  established, 
is  only  true  in  that  constitution  which  depends  perpetually  upon 
the  will  of  the  constituent  body,  not  in  that  which,  though  volun- 
tary at  first,  afterwards  becomes  compulsory;  thus  a  woman 
accepts  a  person  as  her  husband,  whom  afterwards  she  is  obliged 
forever  to  obey.  .  .  .  Nor  is  it  true,  as  is  assumed,  that  all  kings 
are  constituted  by  the  people;  this  we  have  already  shown  by  the 
examples  of  a  landowner  accepting  tenants  on  condition  of  their 
obeying  him,  and  of  nations  conquered  in  war. 

The  other  argument  is  taken  from  the  maxim  of  the  philosophers 
that  all  government  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  governed,  not  of 
the  governors;  whence  they  conceive  that  it  follows  that,  the  end 
being  more  noble  than  the  means,  the  governed  are  superior  to 
him  who  governs.  But  it  is  not  universally  true  that  all  govern- 
ment exists  for  the  sake  of  him  who  is  governed.  For  some  kinds 
of  government  are  for  the  sake  of  the  governor,  as  that  of  a  master 
in  his  household;  for  there  the  advantage  of  the  servant  is  ex- 

1  Par.  5  is  omitted.  2  Pars.  9-12  are  omitted. 


272  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

trinsic  and  adventitious,  as  the  gain  of  the  physician  is  extrinsic 
to  the  art  of  medicine.  Other  kinds  of  government  are  for  the 
sake  of  mutual  benefit,  as  the  marital.  So  some  kingly  govern- 
ments may  be  established  for  the  advantage  of  the  kings,  as  those 
which  are  won  by  victory;  and  such  are  not,  therefore,  to  be  called 
tyrannies,  since  tyranny,  as  we  now  understand  it,  implies 
injustice.  Some  governments,  too,  may  have  respect  to  the  utility 
both  of  the  governor  and  of  the  governed,  as  when  a  people  in 
distress  places  over  itself  a  powerful  king  to  protect  it. 

But  I  do  not  deny  that  in  most  governments  the  good  of  the 
governed  is  the  object,  and  that,  as  Hesiod,  Herodotus  and  Cicero 
say,  kings  are  constituted  for  the  sake  of  justice.  But  it  does  not 
follow,  as  our  opponents  infer,  that  peoples  are  superior  to  kings; 
for  guardianship  is  for  the  sake  of  the  ward,  and  yet  the  guardian 
has  authority  and  power  over  the  ward.  And  we  are  not  to 
follow  those  who  urge  that,  as  a  guardian  who  neglects  his  duty 
to  his  wafu.  may  be  superseded,  so  a  king  may  be  in  like  case. 
For  this  is  the  cai*; •*•"'•  th  the  guardian  because  he  has  a  superior; 
but  in  political  government,  because  we  cannot  have  an  infinite 
gradation  of  superiors,  we  must  stop  at  some  person  or  body 
whose  transgressions,  because  they  have  no  superior  judge,  are 
the  peculiar  province  of  God,  as  He  himself  declares;  He  punishes 
them,  if  he  deem  fit  to  do  so,  or  tolerates  them,  in  order  to  punish 

.  or  try  the  people.  .  .  . 

^  IX.  Some  assert  that  there  is  a  mutual  subjection,  so  that  the 
whole  people  ought  to  obey  the  king  when  he  rules  rightly,  but 
that  when  the  king  rules  ill,  he  is  subject  to  the  people.  If  those 
who  say  this  mean  that  those  things  which  are  manifestly  iniqui- 
tous are  not  to  be  done,  though  commanded  by  the  king,  they  are 
saying  what  is  true  and  acknowledged  by  all  good  men;  but  this 
right  to  disobey  does  not  include  any  coercive  authority  or  right  of 
government.  If  any  people  intended  to  share  the  power  of  govern- 
ment with  the  king  (on  which  point  we  shall  have  something  to 
say  hereafter) ,  such  limits  ought  to  be  assigned  to  each  of  the  two 
authorities  as  might  easily  be  recognized  by  distinctions  of  places, 
persons,  and  matters. 

But  the  goodness  or  badness  of  an  act,  which  are  often  matters 
of  great  doubt,  especially  in  political  matters,  are  not  fit  marks  to 
make  such  distinctions;  whence  the  most  extreme  confusion  must 
follow  if  the  king  and  people  claim  cognizance  of  the  same  matter 
by  the  allegation  of  good  and  evil  conduct.  Such  a  disturbed 
state  of  things  no  people,  so  far  as  I  know,  ever  thought  of  intro- 

\  ducing. 


GROTIUS  273 

X.1  .  .  .  Many  think  that  the  distinction  between  sovereign 
and  subordinate  authority  is  to  be  found  in  the  difference  between 
transmission  of  sovereignty  by  heredity  and  transmission  by 
election;  what  comes  by  succession  they  hold  to  be  sovereign,  not 
what  comes  by  election.  But  this  is  certainly  not  universally 
true.  For  succession  is  not  a  title  which  determines  the  nature 
of  authority  but  a  continuation  of  authority  already  existing.  The 
authority  established  by  the  election  of  a  family  is  continued  by 
succession;  whatever  the  first  election  bestows,  the  succession  trans- 
mits. The  Lacedaemonian  kings,  though  inferior  in  authority  to 
the  ephors,  were  hereditary.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Roman  em- 
peror was  absolute,  though  elective. 

XL  A  second  caution  is  this.  We  must  distinguish  between 
what  a  thing  is  and  what  is  the  kind  of  possession  of  it;  this  is 
true  as  to  both  corporeal  and  incorporeal  things.  A  thing  is,  for 
example,  a  piece  of  land,  a  road,  an  act,  a  right  of  way.  Now 
such  a  thing  may  be  held  in  full  right  of  property  (pleno  jure),  or 
as  tenant  for  life  (jure  usufructuario) ,  or  as  tenant  for  a  time  only 
(jure  temporario) .  Thus  the  Roman  dictator  held  his  authority  as 
temporary  tyrant;  most  kings,  both  elected  and  hereditary,  by 
usufructuary  right;  but  some  kings,  in  full  right  of  property,  as 
those  who  have  acquired  their  authority  through  legitimate  war, 
or  in  whose  power  a  people  have  put  itself  absolutely  in  order  to 
escape  from  some  greater  hardship. 

XII.  Some  learned  men  oppose  the  doctrine  that  sovereign 
authority  can  be  held  in  full  right  of  property,  because,  they  say, 
free  men  cannot  be  held  as  transferable  things.  But  just  as 
domestic  authority  is  one  thing,  royal  authority  another,  so  per- 
sonal liberty  is  one  thing,  civil  liberty  another;  one  is  a  matter  of 
individuals,  the  other  of  groups  of  individuals  (universorum) .  .  .  . 
Men  may  have  personal  liberty,  so  as  not  to  be  slaves,  and  yet  not 
have  civil  liberty,  so  as  to  be  free  citizens.  .  .  .  The  question  here 
is  concerning  the  liberty  not  of  individuals,  but  of  a  people.  A 
people  which  is  under  this  public,  as  distinguished  from  private, 
subjection,  is  said  to  be  non  sui  juris,  non  sua  potestatis.  .  .  . 

When  a  people  is  transferred  from  one  sovereign  to  another, 
it  is  not  the  persons,  but  the  right  of  governing  them,  which  is 
transferred;  so  when  a  freedman  was  assigned  by  his  patrons  to 
one  of  his  sons,  there  was  no  alienation  of  a  free  man,  but  a  right 
attaching  to  the  man  was  transferred. 

Again,  some  assert  that  where  a  king  has  conquered  a  people 
in  war,  he  has  won  them  by  the  sweat  and  blood  of  his  citizens, 

1  Pars.  1-4  are  omitted. 


274  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

and,  therefore,  the  acquisition  is  theirs  rather  than  his.  But  this 
objection  will  not  hold.  For  the  king  may  have  supported  the 
army  out  of  his  own  property  or  from  the  royal  patrimony.  ...  It 
may  therefore  happen  that  a  king  has  authority  over  a  people  as 
a  proprietary  right,  so  that  he  can  even  alienate  that  authority  to 
another.  .  .  . 

XIII.  But   in   kingdoms   where   royal   authority   has   been 
bestowed  by  the  will  of  the  people,  it  is  not  to  be  presumed  that 
it  was  their  will  that  their  king  should  have  the  right  of  alienating 
that  authority.  .  .  . 

XIV.  That  completeness  of  possession  is  not  a  measure  of 
sovereignty  is  seen  not  only  in  the  fact  that  many  sovereignties 
are  held  not  plena  jure ,  but  also  in  the  fact  that  many  powers  lower 
than  sovereignty  are  held  plena  jure;  whence  it  comes  about  that 
marquisates  and  counties  are  sold  and  bequeathed  more  easily 
than  kingdoms. 

XVI.  The  third  observation  is  that  the  authority  does  not 
cease  to  be  sovereign,  although  he  who  is  to  become  ruler  makes 
certain  promises  to  his  subjects  or  to  God,  even  concerning  matters 
which  relate  to  the  manner  of  government.  I  do  not  now  speak 
of  promises  to  observe  natural  law,  divine  law,  and  the  law  of 
nations,  to  which  all  kings  are  bound  without  promise,  but  of 
rules  to  which  they  could  not  be  bound  without  promise.  The 
truth  of  this  appears  from  the  analogy  of  the  master  of  a  family, 
who,  although  he  should  have  promised  the  family  to  do  something 
which  pertains  to  the  government  of  the  family,  does  not  thereby 
cease  to  have  supreme  power  in  the  family,  so  far  as  family  matters 
are  concerned.  Nor  does  a  husband  lose  his  marital  authority 
by  making  certain  promises  to  his  wife. 

But  still  it  must  be  confessed  that  when  this  is  done,  the  sover- 
eignty is  in  some  degree  limited,  whether  the  obligation  respect 
merely  the  performance  of  certain  acts,  or  directly  affect  the  power 
itself.  In  the  former  case  an  act  done  against  the  promise  will 
be  unjust  because,  as  we  shall  later  show,  a  legitimate  promise 
gives  a  right  to  the  promisee;  in  the  latter  case,  the  act  is  null  by 
reason  of  defect  of  the  power  of  doing  it.  But  it  does  not  follow 
from  this  that  the  person  so  promising  has  a  superior;  for  the  act  is 
rendered  null,  in  this  case  not  by  a  superior  power,  but  by  natural 
law.1  .  .  . 

But  suppose  the  condition  be  added  that  if  the  king  violate 
his  promise  he  should  lose  his  kingdom.  Even  so  his  sovereignty 

1  Par.  3  is  omitted. 


GROTIUS  275 

does  not  cease,  but  becomes  a  mode  of  possession,  narrowed  by  a 
condition  and  not  unlike  temporary  sovereignty.  .  .  . 

XVII.  In  the  fourth  place,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  sovereignty, 
though  in  itself  a  unit  and  indivisible,  composed  of  those  parts 
which  we  have  enumerated,  with  the  addition  of  irresponsibility, 
may  be  divided  in  possession.     Thus  the  Roman  imperial  power, 
though  one,  was  often  divided,  so  that  one  ruler  had  the  East, 
another  the  West ;  or  even  into  three  parts.     So  too  it  may  happen 
that  a  people  when  it  chooses  a  king  may  reserve  certain  acts  to 
itself,  and  commit  others  to  the  king  plena  jure.    This  is  not  the 
case  whenever  the  king  is  bound  by  certain  promises,  as  we  have 
shown  above.     But  it  is  to  be  understood  to  happen  when  the 
partition  of  power  is  expressly  instituted,  concerning  which  we 
have  already  spoken;  or  if  a  people,  hitherto  free,  lay  upon  the 
king  some  perpetual  precept;  or  if  anything  be  added  to  the  com- 
pact, by  which  it  is  understood  that  the  king  can  be  compelled  or 
punished.     For  a  precept  is  the  act  of  a  superior,  at  least  in  the 
thing  commanded.     To  compel  is  not  always  the  act  of  a  superior; 
for  by  natural  law  a  creditor  has  the  right  of  coercing  his  debtor; 
but  to  compel  is  at  variance  with  the  nature  of  an  inferior.     There- 
fore, in  the  case  of  such  compulsion,  a  parity  of  powers,  at  least, 
follows,  and  sovereignty  is  divided. 

Many  persons  allege  many  inconveniences  against  such  a  two- 
headed  sovereignty.  But  in  political  matters  nothing  is  entirely 
free  from  inconvenience.  And  law  is  to  be  measured  not  according 
to  what  seems  best  to  this  or  that  person,  but  by  the  will  of  him 
who  is  the  origin  of  law.  .  .  .  Such  engagements  as  we  have  been 
speaking  of  have  been  made  not  only  between  kings  and  their 
peoples,  but  also  among  different  kings  and  different  peoples,  and 
between  kings  and  neighboring  peoples,  each  giving  a  guarantee 
to  the  other. 

XVIII.  Those  are  very  much  mistaken  who  consider  that  there 
is  a  division  of  sovereignty  when  kings  allow  certain  of  their  own 
acts  not  to  be  valid  except  when  approved  by  a  senate  or  some 
other  assembly.     For  when  in  such  cases  acts  of  the  king  are  re- 
scinded they  are  to  be  understood  as   being  rescinded  by  the 
authority  of  the  king,  who  provided  such  a  caution  against  falla- 
cious representations.     Thus  Antiochus  the  Third  sent  a  rescript 
to  the  magistrates,  that  if  he  commanded  anything  contrary  to 
the  laws,  they  should  not  obey  him;  and  Constantine  directed  that 
widows  and  orphans  should  not  be  compelled  to  come  to  the 
emperor's  court  for  judgment,  though  a  rescript  of  the  emperor  to 
that  effect  should  be  produced. 


276  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

The  case  is  like  that  of  a  testament  in  which  it  is  added  that 
no  subsequent  testament  shall  be  valid;  for  this  clause  has  the 
effect  of  making  a  later  testament  presumed  not  to  be  the  real 
will  of  the  testator.  But  as  such  a  clause  may  be  rescinded  by  an 
express  and  special  signification  of  the  writer,  so  may  the  direction 
of  the  king. 

SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

White,  Seven  Great  Statesmen,  pp.  53-78,  103-110. 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  ch.  v,  §§  I  and  2. 

Figgis,  Studies  of  Political  Thought,  from  Gerson  to  Grotius,  pp.  191-200, 

211-219. 

Franck,  Reformateurs  et  publicistes  de  I' Europe,  dix-septieme  siecle,  pp.  253-266. 
Pradier-Fod6re",  Essai  biographique  et  hislorique  sur  Grotius  et  son  temps. 
Luden,  Hugo  Grotius  nach  seinen  Schicksalen  und  Schriften. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  ch.  v,  §§  3-6. 

Bluntschli,  Geschichte  der  neuren  Staatswissenschaft,  pp.  88-100. 

Franck,  Reformateurs  et  publicistes  de  I'Europe,  dix-septieme  siecle,   pp.  266- 

White,  Seven  Great  Statesmen,  pp.  79-102. 

Hallam,  Literature  of  Europe  in  the  Fifteenth,  Sixteenth,  and  Seventeenth 

Centuries,  Vol.  II,  pp.  548-584. 
Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  II,  pp.  227-234. 


MILTON 


XIH.    JOHN  MILTON  (1608-1674) 
INTRODUCTION 

In  the  combat  between  Puritans  and  Royalists  in  England  in 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  protagonists  of  republi- 
can ideas  founded  their  doctrines  upon  general  principles  of  polit- 
ical justice,  not  upon  English  law  and  precedent.  In  the  pamph- 
lets of  this  era  we  find  that  conclusions  concerning  the  rights  of 
the  people  are  derived  through  arguments  similar  to  those  em- 
ployed by  continental  pamphleteers  of  the  preceding  century.  In 
clear  statement  of  republican  doctrine  and  in  specific  analysis  of 
the  content  of  the  sphere  of  original  human  rights,  English  writers 
advanced  beyond  their  continental  predecessors.  The  English 
republican  theory  was  set  forth  most  eloquently  and  logically  in 
the  polemical  writings  of  Milton.  Milton's  political  essays  con- 
stitute the  major  part  of  his  literary  output  between  1640  and  1660. 
The  graceful  style  and  philosophic  tone  of  these  essays  gave  great 
currency  and  influence  to  his  views. 

Milton  was  actively  identified  with  the  movements  which  he 
expounded  and  defended.  He  entered  first  into  the  controversy 
concerning  church  government;  in  this  affair  he  belonged  to  the 
party  which  advocated  complete  separation  of  church  and  state, 
the  abrogation  of  the  episcopal  organization,  and  the  substitution 
of  an  order  similar  to  that  of  the  Scotch  Presbyterian  church.  He 
was  a  zealous  partisan  of  the  Parliamentary  party  during  the 
civil  war.  In  one  conspicuous  instance,  however,  he  took  strong 
stand  against  the  action  of  his  party.  The  occasion  of  his  opposi- 
tion was  the  "Printing  Ordinance"  issued  by  Parliament  in  1644, 
which  required  all  publications  to  be  licensed  by  an  official  censor. 
Milton  fell  under  charges  of  contempt  of  Parliament  for  having 
issued  a  pamphlet  in  justification  of  divorce  (following  his  own 
divorce)  without  obtaining  a  license  for  the  publication.  After 
the  charge  of  contempt  was  made  he  published  an  essay  entitled 
Areopagitica:  a  Speech  of  Mr.  John  Milton  for  the  Liberty  of  Un- 
licensed Printing,  to  the  Parliament  of  England.  In  this  essay 

279 


280  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

he  broadened  his  contention  against  censorship  of  the  press  into 
a  defence  of  liberty  in  general.  The  principal  element  of  this 
discussion  is  the  argument  for  liberty  as  an  essential  feature  of 
the  dignity  of  man  and  as  an  indispensable  condition  for  the 
development  of  his  distinctive  faculty  of  reason.  This  emphasis 
upon  the  relation  of  man's  political  rights  to  his  peculiar  nature 
as  a  rational  being,  constitutes  a  characteristic  quality  of  Milton's 
other  political  writings. 

Upon  the  execution  of  Charles  I  Milton  immediately  aligned 
himself  with  the  republican  group;  he  expressed  his  views,  in 
justification  of  the  execution,  in  a  pamphlet  on  The  Tenure  of 
Kings  and  Magistrates;  proving,  that  it  is  lawful  and  hath  been 
so  held  through  all  ages,  for  any,  who  have  the  power,  to  call  to  account 
a  Tyrant,  or  wicked  King,  and  after  due  conviction,  to  depose,  and 
put  him  to  death,  if  .the  ordinary  magistrate  have  neglected,  or  denied 
to  do  it,  and  that  they,  who  of  late,  so  much  blame  deposing  are  the 
men  that  did  it  themselves.  In  ecclesiastical  matters  Milton  had 
become  an  upholder  of  Independency ;  and  in  politics  he  continued 
consistently  to  support  the  dominant  party  under  the  Common- 
wealth and  the  Protectorate.  Throughout  this  period  he  held 
office  as  " secretary  for  foreign  tongues"  in  the  Council  of  State; 
his  chief  duty  in  this  office  was  the  drafting  of  letters  to  foreign 
governments  and  the  translation  of  the  replies.  He  was  employed 
generally  in  literary  work  and  rendered  particular  service  through 
his  vigorous  pamphlets  in  vindication  of  the  government  against 
charges  made  by  royalist  pamphleteers.  When  the  growth  of  a 
strong  sentiment  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  Protectorate  became 
manifest,  he  sought  to  prevent  the  movement  for  the  recall  of 
Charles  II,  by  putting  forward  a  plan  whereby  a  republican  sys- 
tem might  be  permanently  established.  This  plan  appeared  in 
his  pamphlet  published  in  1660  under  the  title:  The  Ready  and 
Easy  Way  to  Establish  a  Free  Commonwealth,  and  the  Excellence 
thereof  compared  with  the  inconveniences  and  dangers  of  readmitting 
kingship  in  this  nation. 

We  find  Milton's  ideas  on  the  origin  and  limits  of  governmental 
authority  set  forth  most  clearly  in  his  Tenure  of  Kings  and  Magis- 
trates. His  analysis  of  the  nature  of  liberty  is  best  presented  in 
the  Areopagitica,  and  of  the  character  of  free  government,  in  the 
Ready  and  Easy  Way  to  Establish  a  Free  Commonwealth. 


MILTON  281 

READINGS  FROM  THE  POLITICAL  ESSAYS  OF  MILTON1 

1.     The  Origin  of  Government  and  the  Source  and  Limits  of  its 

Authority  2 

No  man,  who  knows  aught,  can  be  so  stupid  to  deny  that  all 
men  naturally  were  born  free,  being  the  image  and  resemblance 
of  God  himself,  and  were  by  privilege  above  all  the  creatures,  born 
to  command  and  not  to  obey.  And  that  they  lived  so,  till  from 
the  root  of  Adam's  transgression  falling  among  themselves  to  do 
wrong  and  violence,  and  foreseeing  that  such  courses  must  needs 
tend  to  the  destruction  of  them  all,  they  agreed  by  common  league 
to  bind  each  other  from  mutual  injury,  and  jointly  to  defend  them- 
selves against  any  that  gave  disturbance  or  opposition  to  such 
agreement.  Hence  came  cities,  towns,  and  commonwealths. 
And  because  no  faith  in  all  was  found  sufficiently  binding,  they 
saw  it  needful  to  ordain  some  authority  that  might  restrain  by 
force  and  punishment  what  was  violated  against  peace  and  common 
right. 

This  authority  and  power  of  self-defence  and  preservation 
being  originally  and  naturally  in  every  one  of  them,  and  unitedly 
in  them  all;  for  ease,  for  order,  and  lest  each  man  should  be  his 
own  partial  judge,  they  communicated  and  derived  either  to  one 
whom  for  the  eminence  of  his  wisdom  and  integrity  they  chose 
above  the  rest,  or  to  more  than  one,  whom  they  thought  of  equal 
deserving:  the  first  was  called  a  king;  the  other  magistrates:  not 
to  be  their  lords  and  masters — though  afterwards  those  names  in 
some  places  were  given  voluntarily  to  such  as  had  been  authors  of 
inestimable  good  to  the  people — but  to  be  their  deputies  and  com- 
missioners, to  execute,  by  virtue  of  their  intrusted  power,  that  jus- 
tice, which  else  every  man  by  the  bond  of  nature  and  of  covenant 
must  have  executed  for  himself,  and  for  one  another.  And  to 
him  that  shall  consider  well  why  among  free  persons  one  man  by 
civil  right  should  bear  authority  and  jurisdiction  over  another, 
no  other  end  or  reason  can  be  imaginable. 

These  for  a  while  governed  well,  and  with  much  equity  decided 
all  things  at  their  own  arbitrament;  till  the  temptation  of  such  a 
power  left  absolute  in  their  hands,  perverted  them  at  length  to 
injustice  and  partiality.  Then  did  they  who  now  by  trial  had  found 
the  danger  and  inconveniences  of  committing  arbitrary  power  to 

1  The  selections  are  taken  from  English  Prose  Writings  of  John  Milton,  edited 
by  Henry  Morley.    London,  1889.    George  Routledge  and  Sons. 

2  From  The  Tenure  of  Kings  and  Magistrates  (Morley),  pp.  358-362,  364- 
365,  379-381. 


282  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

any,  invent  laws,  either  framed  or  consented  to  by  all,  that  should 
confine  and  limit  the  authority  of  whom  they  chose  to  govern 
them:  that  so  Man,  of  whose  failing  they  had  proof,  might  no 
more  rule  over  them,  but  Law  and  Reason,  abstracted  as  much  as 
might  be  from  personal  errors  and  frailties.  "  While,  as  the 
magistrate  was  set  above  the  people,  so  the  law  was  set  above 
the  magistrate."  When  this  would  not  serve,  but  that  the  law 
was  either  not  executed,  or  misapplied,  they  were  constrained  from 
that  time,  the  only  remedy  left  them,  to  put  conditions  and  take 
oaths  from  all  kings  and  magistrates  at  their  first  installment,  to 
do  impartial  justice  by  law:  who,  upon  these  terms  and  no  other, 
received  allegiance  from  the  people,  that  is  to  say,  bond  or  covenant 
to  obey  them  in  execution  of  those  laws,  which  they,  the  people, 
had  themselves  made  or  assented  to.  And  this  ofttimes  with 
express  warning,  that  if  the  king  or  magistrate  proved  unfaithful 
to  his  trust,  the  people  would  be  disengaged.  They  added  also 
counsellors  and  parliaments,  not  to  be  only  at  his  beck,  but, 
with  him  or  without  him,  at  set  times,  or  at  all  times,  when  any 
danger  threatened,  to  have  care  of  the  public  safety.  Therefore 
saith  Claudius  Sesell,  a  French  statesman,  r  The  Parliament  was 
set  as  a  bridle  to  the  king  ;^  which  I  instance  rather,  not  because 
our  English  lawyers  have  not  said  the  same  long  before,  but 
because  that  French  monarchy  is  granted  by  all  to  be  a  far  more 
absolute  one  than  ours.  That  this  and  the  rest  of  what  hath 
hitherto  been  spoken  is  most  true,  might  be  copiously  made  appear 
through  all  stories,  heathen  and  Christian;  even  of  those  nations 
where  kings  and  emperors  have  sought  means  to  abolish  all  ancient 
memory  of  the  people's  right  by  their  encroachments  and  usurpa- 
tions. But  I  spare  long  insertions,  appealing  to  the  German, 
French,  Italian,  Arragonian,  English,  and  not  least  the  Scottish 
histories;  not  forgetting  this  only  by  the  way,  that  William  the 
Norman,  though  a  conqueror,  and  not  unsworn  at  his  coronation, 
was  compelled  a  second  time  to  take  oath  at  St.  Alban's  ere  the 
people  would  be  brought  to  yield  obedience. 

It  being  thus  manifest  that  the  power  of  Kings  and  Magis- 
trates is  nothing  else  but  what  is  only  derivative,  transferred,  and 
committed  to  them  in  trust  from  the  People  to  the  common  good 
of  them  all,  in  whom  the  power  yet  remains  fundamentally  and 
cannot  be  taken  from  them  without  a  violation  of  their  natural 
birthright;  and  seeing  that  from  hence  Aristotle  and  the  best  of 
political  writers  have  defined  a  king,  "him  who  governs  to  the  good 
and  profit  of  his  people,  and  not  for  his  own  ends; "  it  follows  from 
necessary  causes,  that  the  titles  of  sovereign  lord,  natural  lord  and 


MILTON  283 

the  like  are  either  arrogancies  or  flatteries,  not  admitted  by  emper- 
ors and  kings  of  best  note,  and  disliked  by  the  church  both  of 
Jews  (Isa.  xxvi.  13)  and  ancient  Christians,  as  appears  by  Tertul- 
lian  and  others.  Although  generally  the  people  of  Asia,  and  with 
them  the  Jews  also,  especially  since  the  time  they  chose  a  king 
against  the  advice  and  counsel  of  God,  are  noted  by  wise  authors 
much  inclinable  to  slavery. 

Secondly,  that  to  say,  as  is  usual,  the  king  hath  as  good  right 
to  his  crown  and  dignity  as  any  man  to  his  inheritance,  is  to  make 
the  subject  no  better  than  the  king's  slave,  his  chattel,  or  his  pos- 
session that  may  be  bought  and  sold:  and  doubtless,  if  hereditary 
title  were  sufficiently  inquired,  the  best  foundation  of  it  would  be 
found  but  either  in  courtesy  or  convenience.  But  suppose  it  to 
be  of  right  hereditary,  what  can  be  more  just  and  legal,  if  a  subject 
for  certain  crimes  be  to  forfeit  by  law  from  himself  and  posterity 
all  his  inheritance  to  the  king,  than  that  a  king,  for  crimes  propor- 
tional, should  forfeit  all  his  title  and  inheritance  to  the  people? 
Unless  the  people  must  be  thought  created  all  for  him,  he  not 
for  them,  and  they  all  in  one  body  inferior  to  him  single;  which 
were  a  kind  of  treason  against  the  dignity  of  mankind  to  affirm. 

Thirdly,  it  follows,  that  to  say  kings  are  accountable  to  none 
but  God,  is  the  overcoming  of  all  law  and  government.  For  if 
they  may  refuse  to  give  account,  then  all  covenants  made  with 
them  at  coronation,  all  oaths  are  in  vain,  and  mere  mockeries; 
all  laws  which  they  swear  to  keep,  made  to  no  purpose:  for  if  the 
king  fear  not  God — as  how  many  of  them  do  not — we  hold  then 
our  lives  and  estates  by  the  tenure  of  his  mere  grace  and  mercy, 
as  from  a  god,  not  a  mortal  magistrate;  a  position  that  none  but 
court  parasites  or  men  besotted  would  maintain.  Aristotle, 
therefore,  whom  we  commonly  allow  for  one  of  the  best  interpre- 
ters of  nature  and  morality,  writes  in  the  fourth  of  his  Politics, 
chap,  x,  that  " monarchy  unaccountable  is  the  worst  sort  of  tyran- 
ny, and  least  of  all  to  be  endured  by  free-born  men. " 

And  surely  no  Christian  prince,  not  drunk  with  high  mind  and 
prouder  than  those  pagan  Caesars  that  defied  themselves,  would 
arrogate  so  unreasonably  above  human  condition,  or  derogate  so 
basely  from  a  whole  nation  of  men,  his  brethren,  as  if  for  him  only 
subsisting  and  to  serve  his  glory,  valuing  them  in  comparison  of 
his  own  brute  will  and  pleasure  no  more  than  so  many  beasts,  or 
vermin  under  his  feet  not  to  be  reasoned  with  but  to  be  trod  on; 
among  whom  there  might  be  found  so  many  thousand  men  for 
wisdom,  virtue,  nobleness  of  mind,  and  all  other  respects  but  the 
fortune  of  his  dignity,  far  above  him.  Yet  some  would  persuade 


284  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

us  that  this  absurd  opinion  was  King  David's,  because  in  the  5ist 
Psalm  he  cries  out  to  God,  "Against  thee  only  have  I  sinned;" 
as  if  David  had  imagined,  that  to  murder  Uriah  and  adulterate 
his  wife  had  been  no  sin  against  his  neighbor,  whenas  that  law 
of  Moses  was  to  the  king  expressly  (Deut.  xvii)  not  to  think  so 
highly  of  himself  above  his  brethren.  David,  therefore,  by  those 
words,  could  mean  no  other,  than  either  that  the  depth  of  his 
guiltiness  was  known  to  God  only,  or  to  so  few  as  had  not  the  will 
and  power  to  question  him,  or  that  the  sin  against  God  was  greater 
beyond  compare  than  against  Uriah.  Whatever  his  meaning 
were,  any  wise  man  will  see,  that  the  pathetical  words  of  a  psalm 
can  be  no  certain  decision  to  a  point  that  hath  abundantly  more 
certain  rules  to  go  by. 

How  much  more  rationally  spake  the  heathen  king  Demophoon, 
in  a  tragedy  of  Euripides,  than  these  interpreters  would  put 
upon  King  David!  "I  rule  not  my  people  by  tyranny,  as  if  they 
were  barbarians;  but  am  myself  liable,  if  I  do  unjustly,  to  suffer 
justly."  Not  unlike  was  the  speech  of  Trajan,  the  worthy  em- 
peror, to  one  whom  he  made  general  of  his  praetorian  forces: 
"Take  this  drawn  sword,"  saith  he,  "to  use  for  me  if  I  reign  well; 
if  not,  to  use  against  me."  Thus  Dion  relates.  And  not  Trajan 
only,  but  Theodosius,  the  younger,  a  Christian  emperor,  and  one 
of  the  best,  caused  it  to  be  enacted  as  a  rule  undeniable  and  fit 
to  be  acknowledged  by  all  kings  and  emperors,  that  a  prince  is 
bound  to  the  laws;  that  on  the  authority  of  the  law  the  authority 
of  a  prince  depends,  and  to  the  laws  ought  to  submit.  Which 
edict  of  his  remains  yet  unrepealed  in  the  code  of  Justinian 
(i.  i.  tit.  24),  as  a  sacred  constitution  to  all  the  succeeding  emper- 
ors. How  can  any  king  in  Europe  maintain  and  write  himself 
accountable  to  none  but  God,  when  emperors  in  their  own  imperial 
statutes  have  written  and  decreed  themselves  accountable  to 
law?  And  indeed  where  such  account  is  not  feared,  he  that  bids  a 
man  reign  over  him  above  law,  may  bid  as  well  a  savage  beast. 

It  follows,  lastly,  that  since  the  King  or  Magistrate  holds  his 
authority  of  the  People,  both  originally  and  naturally  for  their 
good,  in  the  first  place,  and  not  his  own,  then  may  the  people, 
as  oft  as  they  shall  judge  it  for  the  best,  either  choose  him  or 
reject  him,  retain  him  or  depose  him,  though  no  tyrant,  merely 
by  the  liberty  and  right  of  free-born  men  to  be  governed  as  seems 
to  them  best.1 

Thus  far  hath  been  considered  chiefly  the  power  of  Kings  and 
Magistrates;  how  it  was  and  is  originally  the  people's,  and  by  them 

'Pp.  358-362. 


MILTON  285 

conferred  in  trust  only  to  be  employed  to  the  common  peace  and 
benefit;  with  liberty  therefore  and  right  remaining  in  them,  to 
reassume  it  to  themselves,  if  by  kings  or  magistrates  it  be  abused; 
or  to  dispose  of  it  by  any  alteration,  as  they  shall  judge  most 
conducing  to  the  public  good. 

We  may  from  hence  with  more  ease  and  force  of  argument 
determine  what  a  tyrant  is,  and  what  the  people  may  do  against 
him.  A  tyrant,  whether  by  wrong  or  by  right  coming  to  the  crown, 
is  he  who,  regarding  neither  law  nor  the  common  good,  reigns  only 
for  himself  and  his  factions:  thus  St.  Basil,  among  others,  defines 
him.  And  because  his  power  is  great,  his  will  boundless  and 
exorbitant,  the  fulfilling  whereof  is  for  the  most  part  accompanied 
with  innumerable  wrongs  and  oppressions  of  the  people,  murders, 
massacres,  rapes,  adulteries,  desolation,  and  subversion  of  cities 
and  whole  provinces;  look  how  great  a  good  and  happiness  a  just 
king  is,  so  great  a  mischief  is  a  tyrant;  as  he  the  public  father  of 
his  country,  so  this  the  common  enemy  against  whom  what  people 
lawfully  may  do,  as  against  a  common  pest  and  destroyer  of  man- 
kind, I  suppose  no  man  of  clear  judgment  need  go  further  to  be 
guided  than  by  the  very  principles  of  nature  in  him.1 

For  as  to  this  question  in  hand,  what  the  people  by  their  just 
right  may  do  in  change  of  government,  or  of  governor,  we  see  it 
cleared  sufficiently,  besides  other  ample  authority,  even  from  the 
mouths  of  princes  themselves.  And  surely  they  that  shall  boast, 
as  we  do,  to  be  a  free  nation,  and  not  have  in  themselves  the  power 
to  remove  or  to  abolish  any  governor,  supreme  or  subordinate, 
with  the  government  itself,  upon  urgent  causes,  may  please  their 
fancy  with  a  ridiculous  and  painted  freedom,  fit  to  cozen  babies; 
but  they  are  indeed  under  tyranny  and  servitude,  as  wanting  that 
power  which  is  the  root  and  source  of  all  liberty,  to  dispose  and 
economize  in  the  land  which  God  hath  given  them,  as  masters  of 
family  in  their  own  house  and  free  inheritance.  Without  which 
natural  and  essential  power  of  a  free  nation,  though  bearing 
high  their  heads,  they  can  in  due  esteem  be  thought  no  better 
than  slaves  and  vassals  born  in  the  tenure  and  occupation  of 
another  inheriting  lord,  whose  government,  though  not  illegal, 
or  intolerable,  hangs  over  them  as  a  lordly  scourge,  not  as  a  free 
government;  and  therefore  to  be  abrogated. 

How  much  more  justly  then  may  they  fling  off  tyranny,  or 
tyrants,  who  being  once  deposed  can  be  no  more  than  private 
men,  as  subject  to  the  reach  of  justice  and  arraignment  as  any 
other  transgressors?  And  certainly  if  men,  not  to  speak  of  heathen 

1  Pp.  364-365. 


286  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

both  wise  and  religious,  have  done  justice  upon  tyrants  what 
way  they  could  soonest,  how  much  more  mild  and  humane  then  is 
it,  to  give  them  fair  and  open  trial;  to  teach  lawless  kings,  and  all 
who  so  much  adore  them,  that  not  mortal  man  nor  his  imperious 
will,  but  Justice,  is  the  only  true  sovereign  and  supreme  majesty 
upon  earth?  Let  men  cease  therefore,  out  of  faction  and  hypoc- 
risy, to  make  outcries  and  horrid  things  of  things  so  just  and  hon- 
orable, though  perhaps  till  now  no  Protestant  state  or  kingdom 
can  be  alleged  to  have  openly  put  to  death  their  king,  which  lately 
some  have  written,  and  imputed  to  their  great  glory;  much  mis- 
taking the  matter.  It  is  not,  neither  ought  it  to  be,  the  glory 
of  a  Protestant  state  never  to  have  put  their  king  to  death; 
it  is  the  glory  of  a  Protestant  king  never  to  have  deserved  death. 
And  if  the  Parliament  and  military  council  do  what  they  do  with- 
out precedent,  if  it  appear  their  duty,  it  argues  the  more  wisdom, 
virtue  and  magnanimity,  that  they  know  themselves  able  to  be 
a  precedent  to  others;  who  perhaps  in  futtire  ages,  if  they  prove 
not  too  degenerate,  will  look  up  with  honor,  and  aspire  toward 
these  exemplary  and  matchless  deeds  of  their  ancestors,  as  to 
the  highest  top  of  their  civil  glory  and  emulation;  which  hereto- 
fore, in  the  pursuance  of  fame  and  foreign  dominion,  spent  itself 
vaingloriously  abroad;  but  henceforth  may  learn  a  better  fortitude, 
to  dare  execute  highest  justice  on  them  that  shall  by  force  of 
arms  endeavor  the  oppressing  and  bereaving  of  religion  and  their 
liberty  at  home.  That  no  unbridled  potentate  or  tyrant,  but  to 
his  sorrow,  for  the  future  may  presume  such  high  and  irresponsible 
licence  over  mankind,  to  havoc  and  turn  upside  down  whole 
kingdoms  of  men,  as  though  they  were  no  more  in  respect  of  his 
perverse  will  than  a  nation  of  pismires.1 

2.     Rational  Liberty  2 

I  conceive,  therefore,  that  when  God  did  enlarge  the  universal 
diet  of  man's  body  (saving  ever  the  rules  of  temperance),  he  then 
also,  as  before,  left  arbitrary  the  dieting  and  repasting  of  our  minds; 
as  wherein  every  mature  man  might  have  to  exercise  his  own 
leading  capacity.  How  great  a  virtue  is  temperance,  how  much 
of  moment  through  the  whole  life  of  man !  Yet  God  commits  the 
managing  so  great  a  trust,  without  particular  law  or  prescription, 
wholly  to  the  demeanor  of  every  grown  man.  And  therefore 
when  he  himself  tabled  the  Jews  from  heaven,  that  omer,  which 
was  every  man's  daily  portion  of  manna,  is  computed  to  have 

*Pp.  379-381.    *FromAreopagitica  (Morley),  pp.  322-323,  329-330,  344-347. 


MILTON  287 

been  more  than  might  have  well  sufficed  the  heartiest  feeder 
thrice  as  many  meals.  For  those  actions  which  enter  into  a 
man  rather  than  issue  out  of  him,  and  therefore  defile  not,  God 
uses  not  to  captivate  under  a  perpetual  childhood  of  prescrip- 
tion, but  trusts  him  with  the  gift  of  reason  to  be  his  own  chooser; 
there  were  but  little  work  left  for  preaching,  if  law  and  compulsion 
should  grow  so  fast  upon  those  things  which  heretofore  were 
governed  only  by  exhortation.1 

Many  there  be  that  complain  of  divine  Providence  for  suffering 
Adam  to  transgress.  Foolish  tongues !  when  God  gave  him  reason, 
he  gave  him  freedom  to  choose,  for  reason  is  but  choosing;  he  had 
been  else  a  mere  artificial  Adam,  such  an  Adam  as  he  is  in  the 
motions.  We  ourselves  esteem  not  of  that  obedience,  or  love,  or 
gift,  which  is  of  force;  God  therefore  left  him  free,  set  before  him  a 
provoking  object  ever  almost  in  his  eyes;  herein  consisted  his 
merit,  herein  the  right  of  his  reward,  the  praise  of  his  abstinence. 
Wherefore  did  he  create  passions  within  us,  pleasures  round 
about  us,  but  that  these  rightly  tempered  are  the  very  ingredients 
of  virtue?  They  are  not  skilful  considerers  of  human  things, 
who  imagine  to  remove  sin  by  removing  the  matter  of  sin;  for 
besides  that  it  is  a  huge  heap  increasing  under  the  very  act  of 
diminishing,  though  some  part  of  it  may  for  a  time  be  withdrawn 
from  some  persons  it  cannot  from  all,  in  such  a  universal  thing  as 
books  are;  and  when  this  is  done,  yet  the  sin  remains  entire. 
Though  ye  take  from  a  covetous  man  all  his  treasure,  he  has  yet 
one  jewel  left,  ye  cannot  bereave  him  of  his  covetousness.  Banish 
all  objects  of  lust,  shut  up  all  youth  into  the  severest  discipline 
that  can  be  exercised  in  any  hermitage,  ye  cannot  make  them 
chaste  that  came  not  thither  so:  such  great  care  and  wisdom  is 
required  to  the  right  managing  of  this  point. 

Suppose  we  could  expel  sin  by  this  means;  look  how  much  we 
thus  expel  of  sin,  so  much  we  expel  of  virtue:  for  the  matter  of 
them  both  is  the  same:  remove  that,  and  ye  remove  them  both 
alike.  This  justifies  the  high  providence  of  God,  who,  though  he 
commands  us  temperance,  justice,  continence,  yet  pours  out 
before  us  even  to  a  profuseness  all  desirable  things,  and  gives  us 
minds  that  can  wander  beyond  all  limit  and  satiety.  Why  should 
we  then  affect  a  rigor  contrary  to  the  manner  of  God  and  of 
nature,  by  abridging  or  scanting  those  means,  which  books 
freely  permitted  are,  both  to  the  trial  of  virtue  and  the  exercise 
of  truth? 

It  would  be  better  done,  to  learn  that  the  law  must  needs  be 

1  Pp.  322-323. 


288  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

frivolous  which  goes  to  restrain  things  uncertainly  and  yet  equally 
working  to  good  and  to  evil.  And  were  I  the  chooser,  a  dram  of 
well-doing  should  be  preferred  before  many  times  as  much  the 
forcible  hindrance  of  evil  doing.  For  God  sure  esteems  the  growth 
and  completing  of  one  virtuous  person,  more  than  the  restraint 
of  ten  vicious.1 

Where  there  is  much  desire  to  learn,  there  of  necessity  will  be 
much  arguing,  much  writing,  many  opinions;  for  opinion  in  good 
men  is  but  knowledge  in  the  making.  Under  these  fantastic 
terrors  of  sect  and  schism,  we  wrong  the  earnest  and  zealous 
thirst  after  knowledge  and  understanding  which  God  hath  stirred 
up  in  this  city.  What  some  lament  of,  we  rather  should  rejoice 
at,  should  rather  praise  this  pious  forwardness  among  men  to 
reassume  the  ill-deputed  care  of  their  religion  into  their  own  hands 
again.  A  little  generous  prudence,  a  little  forbearance  of  one 
another,  and  some  grain  of  charity  might  win  all  these  diligencies 
to  join  and  unite  into  one  general  and  brotherly  search  after  truth; 
could  we  but  forego  this  prelatical  tradition  of  crowding  free  con- 
sciences and  Christian  liberties  into  canons  and  precepts  of  men.  I 
doubt  not  if  some  great  and  worthy  stranger  should  come  among 
us,  wise  to  discern  the  mould  and  temper  of  a  people  and  how  to 
govern  it,  observing  the  high  hopes  and  aims,  the  diligent  alacrity 
of  our  extended  thoughts  and  reasonings  in  the  pursuance  of 
truth  and  freedom,  but  that  he  would  cry  out  as  Pyrrhus  did, 
admiring  the  Roman  docility  and  courage,  "If  such  were  my  Epi- 
rots,  I  would  not  despair  the  greatest  design  that  could  be  at- 
tempted to  make  a  church  or  kingdom  happy." 

Yet  these  are  the  men  cried  out  against  for  schismatics  and 
sectaries,  as  if,  while  the  temple  of  the  Lord  was  building,  some 
cutting,  some  squaring  the  marble,  others  hewing  the  cedars, 
there  should  be  a  sort  of  irrational  men,  who  could  not  consider 
there  must  be  many  schisms  and  many  dissections  made  in  the 
quarry  and  in  the  timber  ere  the  house  of  God  can  be  built.  And 
when  every  stone  is  laid  artfully  together,  it  cannot  be  united 
into  a  continuity,  it  can  but  be  contiguous  in  this  world.  Neither 
can  every  piece  of  the  building  be  of  one  form;  nay,  rather  the 
perfection  consists  in  this,  that  out  of  many  moderate  varieties 
and  brotherly  dissimilitudes  that  are  not  vastly  disproportional, 
arises  the  goodly  and  the  graceful  symmetry  that  commends  the 
whole  pile  and  structure. 

Let  us  therefore  be  more  considerate  builders,  more  wise  in 
spiritual  architecture,  when  great  reformation  is  expected.  For 

1  Pp.  329-330. 


MILTON  289 

now  the  time  seems  come,  wherein  Moses,  the  great  prophet,  may 
sit  in  heaven  rejoicing  to  see  that  memorable  and  glorious  wish 
of  his  fulfilled,  when  not  only  our  seventy  elders,  but  all  the  Lord's 
people,  are  become  prophets.  No  marvel  then  though  some  men, 
and  some  good  men  too  perhaps,  but  young  in  goodness,  as  Joshua 
then  was,  envy  them.  They  fret,  and  out  of  their  own  weakness 
are  in  agony,  lest  these  divisions  and  sub-divisions  will  undo  us. 
The  adversary  again  applauds,  and  waits  the  hour:  when  they 
have  branched  themselves  out,  saith  he,  small  enough  into  parties 
and  partitions,  then  will  be  our  time.  Fool!  he  sees  not  the  firm 
root,  out  of  which  we  all  grow,  though  into  branches;  nor  will 
beware,  until  he  see  our  small  divided  maniples  cutting  through  at 
every  angle  of  his  ill-united  and  unwieldy  brigade.  And  that  we 
are  to  hope  better  of  all  these  supposed  sects  and  schisms,  and  that 
we  shall  not  need  that  solicitude,  honest  perhaps  though  overtim- 
orous,  of  them  that  vex  in  this  behalf,  but  shall  laugh  in  the  end 
at  those  malicious  applauders  of  our  differences,  I  have  these 
reasons  to  persuade  me. 

First,  when  a  city  shall  be  as  it  were  besieged  and  blocked  about, 
her  navigable  river  infested,  inroads  and  incursions  round,  defiance 
and  battle  oft  rumored  to  be  marching  up,  even  to  her  walls  and 
suburb  trenches;  that  then  the  people,  or  the  greater  part,  more 
than  at  other  times,  wholly  taken  up  with  the  study  of  highest  and 
most  important  matters  to  be  reformed,  should  be  disputing,  rea- 
soning, reading,  inventing,  discoursing,  even  to  a  rarity  and  ad- 
miration, things  not  before  discussed  or  written  of,  argues  first  a 
singular  good  will,  contentedness,  and  confidence  in  your  prudent 
foresight,  and  safe  government,  Lords  and  Commons;  and  from 
thence  derives  itself  to  a  gallant  bravery  and  well-grounded  con- 
tempt of  their  enemies,  as  if  there  were  no  small  number  of  as 
great  spirits  among  us  as  his  was  who,  when  Rome  was  nigh  be- 
sieged by  Hannibal,  being  in  the  city,  bought  that  piece  of  ground 
at  no  cheap  rate  whereon  Hannibal  himself  encamped  his  own  regi- 
ment. 

Next,  it  is  a  lively  and  cheerful  presage  of  our  happy  success  and 
victory.  For  as  in  a  body  when  the  blood  is  fresh,  the  spirits 
pure  and  vigorous,  not  only  to  vital  but  to  rational  faculties,  and 
those  in  the  acutest  and  the  pertest  operations  of  wit  and  subtlety, 
it  argues  in  what  good  plight  and  constitution  the  body  is;  so  when 
the  cheerfulness  of  the  people  is  so  sprightly  up,  as  that  it  has  not 
only  wherewith  to  guard  well  its  own  freedom  and  safety,  but  to 
spare,  and  to  bestow  upon  the  solidest  and  sublimest  points  of 
controversy  and  new  invention,  it  betokens  us  not  degenerated; 


290  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

nor  drooping  to  a  fatal  decay,  by  casting  off  the  old  and  wrinkled 
skin  of  corruption  to  outlive  these  pangs  and  wax  young  again, 
entering  the  glorious  ways  of  truth  and  prosperous  virtue,  destined 
to  become  great  and  honorable  in  these  latter  ages. 

Methinks  I  see  in  my  mind  a  noble  and  puissant  nation  rousing 
herself  like  a  strong  man  after  sleep,  and  shaking  her  invincible 
locks.  Methinks  I  see  her  as  an  eagle  mewing  her  mighty  youth, 
and  kindling  her  undazzled  eyes  at  the  full  midday  beam;  purging 
and  unsealing  her  long  abused  sight  at  the  fountain  itself  of  heaven- 
ly radiance;  while  the  whole  noise  of  timorous  and  flocking  birds, 
with  those  also  that  love  the  twilight,  flutter  about,  amazed  at 
what  she  means,  and  in  their  envious  gabble  would  prognosticate 
a  year  of  sects  and  schisms. 

What  should  ye  do  then,  should  ye  suppress  all  this  flowery  crop 
of  knowledge  and  new  light  sprung  up  and  yet  springing  daily  in 
this  city?  Should  ye  set  an  oligarchy  of  twenty  engrossers  over  it, 
to  bring  a  famine  upon  our  minds  again,  when  we  shall  know  noth- 
ing but  what  is  measured  to  us  by  their  bushel?  Believe  it,  Lords 
and  Commons!  they  who  counsel  ye  to  such  a  suppressing,  do  as 
good  as  bid  ye  suppress  yourselves;  and  I  will  soon  show  how.  If 
it  be  desired  to  know  the  immediate  cause  of  all  this  free  writing 
and  free  speaking,  there  cannot  be  assigned  a  truer  than  your  own 
mild,  and  free,  and  humane  government;  it  is  the  liberty,  Lords 
and  Commons,  which  your  own  valorous  and  happy  counsels  have 
purchased  us;  liberty  which  is  the  nurse  of  all  great  wits:  this  is 
that  which  hath  ratified  and  enlightened  our  spirits  like  the  influ- 
ence of  heaven:  this  is  that  which  hath  enfranchised,  enlarged, 
and  lifted  up  our  apprehensious  degrees  above  themselves.  Ye 
cannot  make  us  now  less  capable,  less  knowing,  less  eagerly  pur- 
suing of  the  truth,  unless  ye  first  make  yourselves,  that  made  us 
so,  less  the  lovers,  less  the  founders  of  our  true  liberty.  We  can 
grow  ignorant  again,  brutish,  formal,  and  slavish,  as  ye  found  us; 
but  you  then  must  first  become  that  which  ye  cannot  be,  oppres- 
sive, arbitrary  and  tyrannous,  as  they  were  from  whom  ye  have 
freed  us.  That  our  hearts  are  now  more  capacious,  our  thoughts 
more  erected  to  the  search  and  expectation  of  greatest  and  exactest 
things,  is  the  issue  of  your  own  virtue  propagated  in  us;  ye  cannot 
suppress  that,  unless  ye  reinforce  an  abrogated  and  merciless  law, 
that  fathers  may  dispatch  at  will  their  own  children.  And  who 
shall  then  stick  closest  to  ye  and  excite  others?  Not  he  who  takes 
up  arms  for  coat  and  conduct,  and  his  four  nobles  of  Danegelt. 
Although  I  dispraise  not  the  defence  of  just  immunities,  yet  love 
my  peace  better,  if  that  were  all.  Give  me  the  liberty  to  know,  to 


MILTON  291 

utter,  and  to  argue  freeiy  according  to  conscience,  above  all 
liberties.1 

3.     The  Character  of  Free  Government 2 

I  doubt  not  but  all  ingenuous  and  knowing  men  will  easily  agree 
with  me,  that  a  Free  Commonwealth  without  Single  Person  or 
House  of  Lords  is  by  far  the  best  government,  if  it  can  be  had;  but 
we  have  all  this  while,  say  they,  been  expecting  it,  and  cannot  yet 
attain  it.  It  is  true,  indeed,  when  monarchy  was  dissolved,  the 
form  of  a  commonwealth  should  have  forthwith  been  framed,  and 
the  practice  thereof  immediately  begun,  that  the  people  might 
have  soon  been  satisfied  and  delighted  with  the  decent  order,  ease 
and  benefit  thereof.  We  had  been  then  by  this  time  firmly  rooted, 
past  fear  of  commotions  or  mutations,  and  now  flourishing;  this 
care  of  timely  settling  a  new  government  instead  of  the  old,  too 
much  neglected,  hath  been  our  mischief.  Yet  the  cause  thereof 
may  be  ascribed  with  most  reason  to  the  frequent  disturbances, 
interruptions,  and  dissolutions,  which  the  Parliament  hath  had, 
partly  from  the  impatient  or  disaffected  people,  partly  from  some 
ambitious  leader  in  the  army,  much  contrary,  I  believe,  to  the 
mind  and  approbation  of  the  army  itself,  and  their  other  com- 
manders, once  undeceived  or  in  their  own  power. 

Now  is  the  opportunity,  now  the  very  season,  wherein  we  may 
obtain  a  Free  Commonwealth,  and  establish  it  forever  in  the  land, 
without  difficulty  or  much  delay.  Writs  are  sent  out  for  elections, 
and,  which  is  worth  observing,  in  the  name,  not  of  any  king,  but 
of  the  keepers  of  our  liberty,  to  summon  a  free  parliament;  which 
then  only  will  indeed  be  free,  and  deserve  the  true  honor  of  that 
supreme  title,  if  they  preserve  us  a  free  people.  Which  never 
Parliament  was  more  free  to  do,  being  now  called,  not,  as  hereto- 
fore, by  the  summons  of  a  king,  but  by  the  voice  of  liberty.  And 
if  the  people,  laying  aside  prejudice  and  impatience,  will  seriously 
and  calmly  now  consider  their  own  good,  both  religious  and  civil, 
their  own  liberty  and  the  only  means  thereof  as  shall  be  here 
laid  down  before  them,  and  will  elect  their  knights  and  burgesses 
able  men,  and  according  to  the  just  and  necessary  qualifications — 
which,  for  aujght  I  hear,  remain  yet  in  force  unrepealed,  as  they 
were  formerly  decreed  in  Parliament — men  not  addicted  to  a  Single 
Person  or  House  of  Lords,  the  work  is  done;  at  least  the  foundation 
firmly  laid  of  a  Free  Commonwealth,  and  good  part  also  erected 
of  the  main  structure. 

1  Pp.  344-347- 

2  From  The  Ready  and  Easy  Way  to  Establish  a  Free  Commonwealth  (Morley), 
pp.  431-433,  435-437,  441-444. 


292  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

For  the  ground  and  basis  of  every  just  and  free  government — 
since  men  have  smarted  so  oft  for  committing  all  to  one  person — 
is  a  General  Council  of  ablest  men,  chosen  by  the  People  to  con- 
sult of  public  affairs  from  time  to  time  for  the  common  good.  In 
this  Grand  Council  must  the  sovereignty,  not  transferred  but  dele- 
gated only  and  as  it  were  deposited,  reside;  with  this  caution, 
they  must  have  the  forces  by  sea  and  land  committed  to  them  for 
preservation  of  the  common  peace  and  liberty;  must  raise  and 
manage  the  public  revenue,  at  least  with  some  inspectors  deputed 
for  satisfaction  of  the  people  how  it  is  employed;  must  make  or 
propose,  as  more  expressly  shall  be  said  anon,  civil  laws;  treat  of 
commerce,  peace  or  war  with  foreign  nations;  and,  for  the  carrying 
on  some  particular  affairs  with  more  secrecy  and  expedition,  must 
elect,  as  they  have  already  out  of  their  own  number  and  others, 
a  Council  of  State. 

And,  although  it  may  seem  strange  at  first  hearing,  by  reason 
that  men's  minds  are  prepossessed  with  the  notion  of  successive 
parliaments,  I  affirm,  that  the  Grand  or  General  Council,  being 
well  chosen,  should  be  perpetual.  For  so  their  business  is  or  may 
be,  and  ofttimes  urgent;  the  opportunity  of  affairs  gained  or  lost 
in  a  moment.  The  day  of  Council  cannot  be  set  as  the  day  of  a 
festival,  but  must  be  ready  always  to  prevent  or  answer  all  occa- 
sions. By  this  continuance  they  will  become  every  way  skil- 
fullest,  best  provided  of  intelligence  from  abroad,  best  acquainted 
with  the  people  at  home,  and  the  people  with  them.  The  ship 
of  the  commonwealth  is  always  under  sail;  they  sit  at  the  stern; 
and  if  they  steer  well,  what  need  is  there  to  change  them,  it  being 
rather  dangerous?  Add  to  this,  that  the  Grand  Council  is  both 
foundation  and  main  pillar  of  the  whole  state;  and  to  move  pillars 
and  foundations,  not  faulty,  cannot  be  safe  for  the  building. 

I  see  not,  therefore,  how  we  can  be  advantaged  by  successive 
and  transitory  parliaments;  but  that  they  are  much  likelier  con- 
tinually to  unsettle  rather  than  to  settle  a  free  government,  to 
breed  commotions,  changes,  novelties,  and  uncertainties,  to  bring 
neglect  upon  present  affairs  and  opportunities,  while  all  minds  are 
in  suspense  with  expectation  of  a  new  assembly,  and  the  assembly, 
for  a  good  space,  taken  up  with  the  new  settling  of  itself.  After 
which,  if  they  find  no  great  work  to  do,  they  will  make  it,  by  alter- 
ing or  repealing  former  acts,  or  making  or  multiplying  new,  that 
they  may  seem  to  see  what  their  predecessors  saw  not,  and  not  to 
have  assembled  for  nothing;  till  all  law  be  lost  in  the  multitude 
of  clashing  statutes.1 

i  Pp.  431-433. 


MILTON  293 

To  make  the  people  fittest  to  choose,  and  the  chosen  fittest  to 
govern,  will  be  to  mend  our  corrupt  and  faulty  education,  to  teach 
the  people  faith,  not  without  virtue,  temperance,  modesty, 
sobriety,  parsimony,  justice;  not  to  admire  wealth  or  honor;  to 
hate  turbulence  and  ambition;  to  place  everyone  his  private  wel- 
fare and  happiness  in  the  public  peace,  liberty  and  safety.  They 
shall  not  then  need  to  be  much  distrustful  of  their  chosen  patriots 
in  the  Grand  Council;  who  will  be  then  rightly  called  the  true 
keepers  of  our  liberty,  though  the  most  of  their  business  will  be 
in  foreign  affairs.  But  to  prevent  all  mistrust,  the  people  then  will 
have  their  several  ordinary  assemblies  (which  will  henceforth  quite 
annihilate  the  odious  power  and  name  of  committees)  in  the  chief 
towns  of  every  county,  without  the  trouble,  charge,  or  time  lost 
of  summoning  and  assembling  from  afar  in  so  great  a  number,  and 
so  long  residing  from  their  own  houses  or  removing  of  their  families, 
to  do  as  much  at  home  in  their  several  shires,  entire  or  subdivided, 
toward  the  securing  of  their  liberty,  as  a  numerous  assembly  of 
them  all  formed  and  convened  on  purpose  with  the  wariest  rota- 
tion. Whereof  I  shall  speak  more  ere  the  end  of  this  discourse;  for 
it  may  be  referred  to  time,  so  we  be  still  going  on  by  degrees  to  per- 
fection. The  people  well  weighing  and  performing  these  things,  I 
suppose  would  have  no  cause  to  fear,  though  the  Parliament,  abol- 
ishing that  name,  as  originally  signifying  but  the  parley  of  our  lords 
and  commons  with  the  Norman  king  when  he  pleased  to  call  them, 
should,  with  certain  limitations  of  their  power,  sit  perpetual  if 
their  ends  be  faithful  and  for  a  free  commonwealth,  under  the  name 
of  a  Grand  or  General  Council. 

Till  this  be  done,  I  am  in  doubt  whether  our  state  will  be  ever* 
certainly  and  thoroughly  settled;  never  likely  till  then  to  see  an 
end  of  our  troubles  and  continual  changes,  or  at  least  never  the 
true  settlement  and  assurance  of  our  liberty.  The  Grand  Council 
being  thus  firmly  constituted  to  perpetuity,  and  still,  upon  the 
death  or  default  of  any  member,  supplied  and  kept  in  full  number, 
there  can  be  no  cause  alleged  why  peace,  justice,  plentiful  trade, 
and  all  prosperity  should  not  thereupon  ensue  throughout  the  whole 
land,  with  as  much  assurance  as  can  be  of  human  things,  that  they 
shall  so  continue — if  God  favor  us,  and  our  wilful  sins  provoke 
him  not — even  to  the  coming  of  our  true  and  rightful,  and  only  to 
be  expected  King,  only  worthy,  as  he  is  our  only  Saviour,  the  Mes- 
siah, the  Christ,  the  only  heir  of  his  eternal  Father,  the  only  by 
him  anointed  and  ordained  since  the  work  of  our  redemption 
finished,  universal  Lord  of  mankind. 

The  way  propounded  is  plain,  easy,  and  open  before  us;  without 


294  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

intricacies,  without  the  introducement  of  new  or  absolute  forms 
or  terms,  or  exotic  models;  ideas  that  would  effect  nothing  but 
with  a  number  of  new  injunctions  to  manacle  the  native  liberty  of 
mankind;  turning  all  virtue  into  prescription,  servitude,  and 
necessity,  to  the  great  impairing  and  frustrating  of  Christian 
liberty.  I  say  again,  this  way  lies  free  and  smooth  before  us;  is 
not  tangled  with  inconveniences;  invents  no  new  incumbrances; 
requires  no  perilous,  no  injurious  alteration  or  circumscription 
of  men's  lands  and  properties ;  secure,  that  in  this  commonwealth, 
temporal  and  spiritual  lords  removed,  no  man  or  number  of  men 
can  attain  to  such  wealth  or  vast  possession,  as  will  need  the  hedge 
of  an  agrarian  law — never  successful,  but  the  cause  rather  of  sedi- 
tion, save  only  where  it  began  seasonably  with  first  possession — 
to  confine  them  from  endangering  our  public  liberty.1 

Having  thus  far  shown  with  what  ease  we  may  now  obtain  a 
Free  Commonwealth,  and  by  it,  with  as  much  ease,  all  the  free- 
dom, peace,  justice,  plenty,  that  we  can  desire;  on  the  other  side, 
the  difficulties,  troubles,  uncertainties,  nay,  rather  impossibilities, 
to  enjoy  these  things  constantly  under  a  monarch;  I  will  now  pro- 
ceed to  show  more  particularly  wherein  our  freedom  and  flourishing 
condition  will  be  more  ample  and  secure  to  us  under  a  free  com- 
monwealth, than  under  kingship. 

The  whole  freedom  of  man  consists  either  in  spiritual  or  civil 
liberty.  As  for  spiritual,  who  can  be  at  rest,  who  can  enjoy  any- 
thing in  this  world  with  contentment,  who  hath  not  liberty  to 
serve  God  and  to  save  his  own  soul  according  to  the  best  light 
which  God  hath  planted  in  him  to  that  purpose  by  the  reading  of 
his  revealed  will  and  the  guidance  of  his  Holy  Spirit?  That  this 
is  best  pleasing  to  God,  and  that  the  whole  Protestant  church 
allows  no  supreme  judge  or  rule  in  matters  of  religion,  but  the 
Scriptures,  and  these  to  be  interpreted  by  the  Scriptures  them- 
selves, which  necessarily  infers  liberty  of  conscience,  I  have  here- 
tofore proved  at  large  in  another  treatise;  and  might  yet  further, 
by  the  public  declarations,  confessions,  and  admonitions  of  whole 
churches  and  states,  obvious  in  all  histories  since  the  Reforma- 
tion. 

This  liberty  of  conscience,  which  above  all  other  things  ought 
to  be  to  all  men  dearest  and  most  precious,  no  government  more 
inclinable  not  to  favor  only,  but  to  protect,  than  a  Free  Common- 
wealth; as  being  most  magnanimous,  most  fearless,  and  confident 
of  its  own  fair  proceedings.  Whereas  kingship,  though  looking 
big,  yet  indeed  most  pusillanimous,  full  of  fears,  full  of  jealousies, 

1  Pp.  435-437- 


MILTON  295 

startled  at  every  umbrage,  as  it  hath  been  observed  of  old  to  have 
ever  suspected  most  and  mistrusted  them  who  were  in  most  esteem 
for  virtue  and  generosity  of  mind,  so  it  is  now  known  to  have  most 
in  doubt  and  suspicion  them  who  are  most  reputed  to  be  religious. 
Queen  Elizabeth,  though  herself  accounted  so  good  a  Protestant, 
so  moderate,  so  confident  of  her  subjects'  love,  would  never  give 
way  so  much  as  to  Presbyterian  Reformation  in  this  land,  though 
once  and  again  besought,  as  Camden  relates;  but  imprisoned  and 
persecuted  the  very  proposers  thereof,  alleging  it  as  her  mind  and 
maxim  unalterable,  that  such  Reformation  would  diminish  regal 
authority. 

What  liberty  of  conscience  can  we  then  expect  of  others,  far 
worse  principled  from  the  cradle,  trained  up  and  governed  by 
Popish  and  Spanish  counsels,  and  on  such  depending  hitherto  for 
subsistence?  Especially  what  can  this  last  Parliament  expect, 
who  having  revived  lately  and  published  the  Covenant,  have 
re-engaged  themselves,  never  to  readmit  episcopacy?  Which  no 
son  of  Charles  returning  but  will  most  certainly  bring  back  with 
him,  if  he  regard  the  last  and  strictest  charge  of  his  father,  "to 
persevere  in,  not  the  doctrine  only,  but  government  of  the  Church 
of  England,  not  to  neglect  the  speedy  and  effectual  suppressing 
of  errors  and  schisms;"  among  which  he  accounted  Presbytery 
one  of  the  chief. 

Or  if,  notwithstanding  that  charge  of  his  father,  he  submit  to 
the  Covenant,  how  will  he  keep  faith  to  us,  with  disobedience  to 
him;  or  regard  that  faith  given,  which  must  be  founded  on  the 
breach  of  that  last  and  solemnest  paternal  charge,  and  the  reluct- 
ance, I  may  say  the  antipathy,  which  is  in  all  kings,  against  Pres- 
byterian and  Independent  discipline?  For  they  hear  the  gospel 
speaking  much  of  liberty;  a  word  which  monarchy  and  her  bishops 
both  fear  and  hate,  but  a  Free  Commonwealth  both  favors  and 
promotes;  and  not  the  word  only,  but  the  thing  itself.  But  let 
our  governors  beware  in  time,  lest  their  hard  measure  to  liberty 
of  conscience  be  found  the  rock  whereon  they  shipwreck  them- 
selves, as  others  have  now  done  before  them  in  the  course  wherein 
God  was  directing  their  steerage  to  a  Free  Commonwealth;  and 
the  abandoning  of  all  those  whom  they  call  sectaries,  for  the  de- 
tected falsehood  and  ambition  of  some,  be  a  wilful  rejection  of 
their  own  chief  strength  and  interest  in  the  freedom  of  all  Prot- 
estant Religion,  under  what  abusive  name  soever  calumniated. 

The  other  part  of  our  freedom  consists  in  the  civil  rights  and 
advancements  of  every  person  according  to  his  merit:  the  enjoy- 
ment of  those  never  more  certain,  and  the  access  to  these  never 


296  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

more  open,  than  in  a  Free  Commonwealth.  Both  which,  in  my 
opinion,  may  be  best  and  soonest  obtained,  if  every  county  in  the 
land  were  made  a  kind  of  subordinate  commonalty  or  common- 
wealth, and  one  chief  town  or  more,  according  as  the  shire  is  in 
circuit,  made  cities,  if  they  be  not  so  called  already;  where  the 
nobility  and  chief  gentry,  from  a  proportionable  compass  of  terri- 
tory annexed  to  each  city,  may  build  houses  or  palaces  befitting 
their  quality,  may  bear  part  in  the  government,  make  their  own 
judicial  laws,  or  use  those  that  are,  and  execute  them  by  their  own 
elected  judicatures  and  judges  without  appeal,  in  all  things  of 
civil  government  between  man  and  man.  So  they  shall  have 
justice  in  their  own  hands,  law  executed  fully  and  finally  in  their 
own  counties  and  precincts,  long  wished  and  spoken  of,  but  never 
yet  obtained.  They  shall  have  none  then  to  blame  but  themselves, 
if  it  be  not  well  administered;  and  fewer  laws  to  expect  or  fear  from 
the  supreme  authority.  Or  to  those  that  shall  be  made,  of  any 
great  concernment  to  public  liberty,  they  may,  without  much 
trouble  in  these  commonalties,  or  in  more  general  assemblies  called 
to  their  cities  from  the  whole  territory  on  such  occasion,  declare 
and  publish  their  assent  or  dissent  by  deputies,  within  a  time 
limited,  sent  to  the  Grand  Council;  yet  so  as  this  their  judgment 
declared  shall  submit  to  the  greater  number  of  other  counties  or 
commonalties,  and  not  avail  them  to  any  exemption  of  themselves, 
or  refusal  of  agreement  with  the  rest,  as  it  may  in  any  of  the  United 
Provinces,  being  sovereign  within  itself  ofttimes  to  the  great 
disadvantage  of  that  Union. 

In  these  employments  they  may,  much  better  than  they  do  now, 
exercise  and  fit  themselves  till  their  lot  fall  to  be  chosen  into  the 
Grand  Council,  according  as  their  worth  and  merit  shall  be  taken 
notice  of  by  the  people.  As  for  controversies  that  shall  happen 
between  men  of  several  counties,  they  may  repair,  as  they  do  now, 
to  the  capital  city,  or  any  other  more  commodious,  indifferent 
place,  and  equal  judges.  And  this  I  find  to  have  been  practised 
in  the  old  Athenian  commonwealth,  reputed  the  first  and  ancient- 
est  place  of  civility  in  all  Greece,  that  they  had  in  their  several 
cities  a  peculiar,  in  Athens  a  common  government,  and  their 
right,  as  it  befell  them,  to  the  administration  of  both. 

They  should  have  here  also  schools  and  academies  at  their  own 
choice,  wherein  their  children  may  be  bred  up  in  their  own  sight 
to  all  learning  and  noble  education;  not  in  grammar  only,  but  in 
all  liberal  arts  and  exercises.  This  would  soon  spread  much  more 
knowledge  and  civility,  yea,  religion,  through  all  parts  of  the  land, 
by  communicating  the  natural  heat  of  government  and  culture 


MILTON  297 

more  distributively  to  all  extreme  parts,  which  now  lie  numb  and 
neglected;  would  soon  make  the  whole  nation  more  industrious, 
more  ingenious  at  home,  more  potent,  more  honorable  abroad. 
To  this  a  Free  Commonwealth  will  easily  assent;  nay,  the  Parlia- 
ment hath  had  already  some  such  thing  in  design ;  for  of  all  govern- 
ments a  commonwealth  aims  most  to  make  the  people  flourishing, 
virtuous,  noble,  and  high-spirited.  Monarchs  will  never  permit; 
whose  aim  is  to  make  the  people  wealthy  indeed  perhaps,  and  well 
fleeced  for  their  own  shearing  and  the  supply  of  regal  prodigality, 
but  otherwise  softest,  basest,  viciousest,  servilest,  easiest  to  be  kept 
under,  and  not  only  in  fleece  but  in  mind  also  sheepishest.  And 
will  have  all  the  benches  of  judicature  annexed  to  the  throne,  as 
a  gift  of  royal  grace  that  we  have  justice  done  us;  whenas  nothing 
can  be  more  essential  to  the  freedom  of  a  people  than  to  have  the 
administration  of  justice  and  all  public  ornaments  in  their  own 
election,  and  within  their  own  bounds,  without  long  travelling  or 
depending  upon  remote  places  to  obtain  their  right,  or  any  civil 
accomplishment,  so  it  be  not  supreme,  but  subordinate  to  the  gen- 
eral power  and  union  of  the  whole  Republic. 

In  which  happy  firmness,  as  in  the  particular  above  mentioned, 
we  shall  also  far  exceed  the  United  Provinces,  by  having  not  as 
they,  to  the  retarding  and  distracting  ofttimes  of  their  counsels 
on  urgentest  occasions,  many  sovereignties  united  in  one  common- 
wealth, but  many  commonwealths  under  one  united  and  intrusted 
sovereignty.  And  when  we  have  our  forces  by  sea  and  by  land, 
either  of  a  faithful  army  or  a  settled  militia,  in  our  own  hands,  to 
the  firm  establishing  of  a  free  commonwealth,  public  accounts 
under  our  own  inspection,  general  laws  and  taxes,  with  their  causes 
in  our  own  domestic  suffrages,  judicial  laws,  offices,  and  ornaments 
at  home  in  our  own  ordering  and  administration,  all  distinction 
of  lords  and  commoners  that  may  any  way  divide  or  sever  the 
public  interest  removed;  what  can  a  perpetual  senate  have  then, 
wherein  to  grow  corrupt,  wherein  to  encroach  upon  us,  or  usurp? 
Or  if  they  do,  wherein  to  be  formidable?  Yet  if  all  this  avail  not 
to  remove  the  fear  or  envy  of  a  perpetual  sitting,  it  may  be  easily 
provided  to  change  a  third  part  of  them  yearly,  or  every  two  or 
three  years,  as  was  above  mentioned:  or  that  it  be  at  those  times 
in  the  people's  choice,  whether  they  will  change  them,  or  renew 
their  power,  as  they  shall  find  cause.1 

1  Pp.  441-444- 


298  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

Stephen,  Leslie,  "John  Milton,"  in  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 

Masson,  Life  of  Milton. 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  pp.  219-241. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  ch.  vii,  §  5. 
Masson,  Life  of  Milton,  Vol.  II,  pp.  237-268,  356-409;  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  269-301 ; 

Vol.  IV,  pp.  64-79,  I3°  &  se<l;  246  et  seq.,  252-267,  580-616;  Vol.  V,  pp. 

580-589,  605-615,  644-655,  675-689. 
Osgood,  "The  Political  Ideas  of  the  Puritans,"  in  Political  Science  Quarterly, 

Vol.  VI  (1891),  pp.  201-231. 
Gooch,  English  Democratic  Ideas  in  the  Seventeenth  Century,  pp.  177-183, 

241-245,  314-320. 


HOBBES 


XIV.    THOMAS  HOBBES  (1588-1679) 

INTRODUCTION 

The  first  comprehensive  work  in  political  philosophy  from  the 
hand  of  an  Englishman  was  written  by  a  supporter  of  the  royalist 
cause  in  the  Puritan  Revolution.  It  was  the  Leviathan  of  Thomas 
Hobbes.  This  treatise  was  not  primarily  polemical  in  character; 
but  its  doctrine  of  irresponsible  sovereignty  was  undoubtedly 
partly  a  product  of  the  royalist  prejudices  of  the  author;  and  the 
time  of  its  publication  was  determined  by  his  desire  to  put  for- 
ward a  theory  of  civil  government  adequate  to  the  political  crisis 
through  which  the  country  was  passing.  In  1637,  some  years 
before  the  completion  of  the  Leviathan,  he  had  published  a  little 
pamphlet  containing  a  defence  of  the  royal  prerogative  with  respect 
to  some  points  of  it  that  were  in  dispute  at  that  time. 

The  experiences  and  associations  of  Hobbes'  life  prepared,  or 
at  least  confirmed,  his  mind  for  the  construction  of  a  system  scien- 
tific in  plan  and  conservative  in  its  implications  for  political 
practice.  A  graduate  of  Oxford,  he  became  in  early  life  tutor  in 
the  family  of  the  Earl  of  Devonshire;  the  connection  with  this 
family  continued,  with  a  few  interruptions,  throughout  the  remain- 
der of  his  life ;  in  one  of  these  interruptions  he  was  tutor  in  mathe- 
matics to  the  Prince  of  Wales  (afterwards  Charles  II)  during  the 
exile  of  the  royal  family  in  France.  Hobbes  had  always  been  a 
student  of  mathematics  and  philosophy;  at  Oxford  he  had  been 
trained  according  to  the  methods  of  scholastic  philosophy. 
Through  his  several  sojourns  in  Europe  with  his  noble  pupils  he 
became  acquainted  with  the  new  school  of  philosophers  and 
scientists,  and  fell  very  much  under  the  influence  of  their  cosmic 
imagination.  The  adherents  of  this  school  of  "mechanical  philos- 
ophy" were  following  in  various  courses  Galileo's  theory  that  the 
laws  of  motion  afford  the  only  true  principle  whereby  all  phenom- 
ena of  physical  nature  are  to  be  explained.  Hobbes  set  himself 
the  task  of  evolving  a  synthetic  philosophy.  Starting  with  mathe- 
matical principles  as  applied  to  the  motions  of  material  bodies, 

301 


302  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

this  philosophy  would  comprehend,  in  its  completed  form,  a  uni- 
fied and  logically  ordered  interpretation  of  the  natural  world, 
man,  and  society. 

The  third  step  in  the  three-fold  design  just  indicated  was  ac- 
complished before  the  other  two,  and  is  embodied  in  the  work 
which  appeared  in  1651  under  the  title,  Leviathan,  or  the  Matter, 
Form  and  Power  of  a  Commonwealth,  Ecclesiastical  and  Civil.1 
This  work  includes  also,  as  groundwork  for  its  social  philosophy,  a 
treatise  on  "Man"  which  constitutes  the  first  part  of  the  Leviathan; 
here  Hobbes  sets  forth  his  materialistic,  deterministic,  and  hedon- 
istic doctrines  of  psychology  and  ethics.  Here  appears  also 
Hobbes'  dark  picture  of  the  primitive  condition  of  mankind,  which 
he  represents  as  well  nigh  intolerable  because  the  dominantly 
selfish  instincts  of  men  engender  mutual  suspicion  and  antagonism; 
the  outward  result  is  continual  and  indiscriminate  strife.  This 
unpeaceful  stage  of  society  is  described  as  the  "state  of  nature," 
which  Hobbes  regards  as  pre-political  in  a  logical,  rather  than 
historical,  sense;  in  other  words,  it  represents  the  normal  state  of 
mankind  so  far  as  men  are  unrestrained  by  the  political  order. 
From  this  introductory  discussion  of  man  and  mankind  are  derived 
the  two  great  ideas  about  which  group  themselves  all  of  the  more 
important  conclusions  of  the  second  part — "Of  Commonwealth." 
/These  two  leading  themes  as  developed  by  Hobbes  were  of  im- 
1  portant  consequence  for  later  political  thought;  they  are  his 
J  theory  of  the  social  contract  as  the  logical  starting-point  of  the 
(  state,  and  his  doctrine  of  the  absoluteness  of  sovereignty,  what- 
ever its  location. 

The  third  and  fourth  parts  of  the  Leviathan  deal  with  theological 
and  ecclesiastical  subjects. 

READINGS  FROM  THE  LEVIATHAN2 

1.     The  State  of  Nature  and  the  Laws  of  Nature  3 

Ch.  xiii.     Of  the  Natural  Condition  of  Mankind  as  concerning 
Felicity  and  Misery. 

1  For  explanation  of  the  word  "Leviathan"  see  the  frontispiece  (it  is  given 
in  the  Moles  worth  edition)  illustrating  the  personation  of  the  state  in  a  giant 
man  made  up  of  men ;  cf.  also  the  Introduction. 

2  Leviathan  constitutes  the  third  volume  of  The  English  Works  of  Thomas 
Hobbes,  edited  by  Molesworth.      It  is  also  available  in  a  volume  edited  by 
Henry  Morley  (third  edition,  London,  1887). 

3  Part  I,  chs.  xiii-xv.    Parts  of  chs.  xiv  and  xv  are  omitted. 


HOBBES  303 

Nature  hath  made  men  so  equal,  in  the  faculties  of  the  body 
and  mind,  as  that  though  there  be  found  one  man  sometimes 
manifestly  stronger  in  body,  or  of  quicker  mind  than  another, 
yet  when  all  is  reckoned  together,  the  difference  between  man  and 
man  is  not  so  considerable,  as  that  one  man  can  thereupon  claim 
to  himself  any  benefit  to  which  another  may  not  pretend,  as  well 
as  he.  For  as  to  the  strength  of  body,  the  weakest  has  strength 
enough  to  kill  the  strongest,  either  by  secret  machination,  or  by 
confederacy  with  others  that  are  in  the  same  danger  with  himself. 

And  as  to  the  faculties  of  the  mind,  setting  aside  the  arts 
grounded  upon  words,  and  especially  that  skill  of  proceeding  upon 
general  and  infallible  rules,  called  science;  which  very  few  have, 
and  but  in  few  things;  as  being  not  a  native  faculty,  born  with  us; 
nor  attained,  as  prudence,  while  we  look  after  somewhat  else,  I 
find  yet  a  greater  equality  amongst  men  than  that  of  strength. 
For  prudence  is  but  experience;  which  equal  time  equally  bestows 
on  all  men,  in  those  things  they  equally  apply  themselves  unto. 
That  which  may  perhaps  make  such  equality  incredible  is  but  a 
vain  conceit  of  one's  own  wisdom,  which  almost  all  men  think  they 
have  in  a  greater  degree  than  the  vulgar;  that  is,  than  all  men  but 
themselves,  and  a  few  others,  whom  by  fame  or  for  concurring 
with  themselves,  they  approve.  For  such  is  the  nature  of  men, 
that  howsoever  they  may  acknowledge  many  others  to  be  more 
witty,  or  more  eloquent,  or  more  learned,  yet  they  will  hardly 
believe  there  be  many  so  wise  as  themselves;  for  they  see  their  own 
wit  at  hand,  and  other  men's  at  a  distance.  But  this  proveth 
rather  that  men  are  in  that  point  equal,  than  unequal.  For  there 
is  not  ordinarily  a  greater  sign  of  the  equal  distribution  of  anything, 
than  that  every  man  is  contented  with  his  share. 

From  this  equality  of  ability  ariseth  equality  of  hope  in  the 
attaining  of  our  ends.  And  therefore  if  any  two  men  desire  the 
same  thing,  which  nevertheless  they  cannot  both  enjoy,  they  be- 
come enemies;  and  in  the  way  to  their  end,  which  is  principally 
their  own  conservation,  and  sometimes  their  delectation  only, 
endeavor  to  destroy  or  subdue  one  another.  And  from  hence 
it  comes  to  pass  that  where  an  invader  hath  no  more  to  fear 
than  another  man's  single  power;  if  one  plant,  sow,  build,  or  possess 
a  convenient  seat,  others  may  probably  be  expected  to  come  pre- 
pared with  forces  united,  to  dispossess  and  deprive  him,  not  only 
of  the  fruit  of  his  labor,  but  also  of  his  life  or  liberty.  And  the 
invader  again  is  in  the  like  danger  of  another. 

And  from  this  diffidence  of  one  another,  there  is  no  way  for  any 
man  to  secure  himself  so  reasonable  as  anticipation;  that  is, 


304  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

by  force,  or  wiles,  to  master  the  persons  of  all  men  he  can,  so  long, 
till  he  see  no  other  power  great  enough  to  endanger  him :  and  this 
is  no  more  than  his  own  conservation  requireth,  and  is  generally 
allowed.  Also  because  there  be  some,  that  taking  pleasure  in 
contemplating  their  own  power  in  the  acts  of  conquest,  which  they 
pursue  farther  than  their  security  requires;  if  others,  that  otherwise 
would  be  glad  to  be  at  ease  within  modest  bounds,  should  not  by 
invasion  increase  their  power,  they  would  not  be  able,  long  time, 
by  standing  only  on  their  defence,  to  subsist.  And  by  conse- 
quence, such  augumentation  of  dominion  over  men  being  necessary 
to  a  man's  conservation,  it  ought  to  be  allowed  him. 

Again,  men  have  no  pleasure,  but  on  the  contrary  a  great  deal 
of  grief,  in  keeping  company,  where  there  is  no  power  able  to 
overawe  them  all.  For  every  man  looketh  that  his  companion 
should  value  him,  at  the  same  rate  he  sets  upon  himself:  and  upon 
all  signs  of  contempt,  or  undervaluing,  naturally  endeavors,  as 
far  as  he  dares  (which  amongst  them  that  have  no  common 
power  to  keep  them  in  quiet,  is  far  enough  to  make  them  destroy 
each  other),  to  extort  a  greater  value  from  his  contemners,  by 
damage;  and  from  others,  by  the  example. 

So  that  in  the  nature  of  man  we  find  three  principal  causes  of 
quarrel.  First,  competition;  secondly,  diffidence;  thirdly,  glory. 

The  first  maketh  men  invade  for  gain;  the  second,  for  safety;  and 
the  third,  for  reputation.  The  first  use  violence,  to  make  themselves 
masters  of  other  men's  persons,  wives,  children,  and  cattle;  the 
second,  to  defend  them;  the  third,  for  trifles,  as  a  word,  a  smile, 
a  different  opinion  and  any  other  sign  of  undervalue,  either  direct 
in  their  persons,  or  by  reflection  in  their  kindred,  their  friends, 
their  nation,  their  profession,  or  their  name. 

Hereby  it  is  manifest  that  during  the  time  men  live  without  a 
common  power  to  keep  them  all  in  awe,  they  are  in  that  condition 
which  is  called  war;  and  such  a  war,  as  is  of  every  man  against 
every  man.  For  war  consisteth  not  in  battle  only,  or  the  act 
of  fighting;  but  in  a  tract  of  time,  wherein  the  will  to  contend  by 
battle  is  sufficiently  known:  and  therefore  the  notion  of  time 
is  to  be  considered  in  the  nature  of  war,  as  it  is  in  the  nature  of 
weather.  For  as  the  nature  of  foul  weather  lieth  not  in  a  shower 
or  two  of  rain,  but  in  an  inclination  thereto  of  many^ays  together; 
so  the  nature  of  war  consisteth  not  in  actual  fighting,  but  in  the 
known  disposition  thereto  during  all  the  time  there  is  no  assurance 
to  the  contrary.  All  other  time  is  peace. 

Whatsoever  therefore  is  consequent  to  a  time  of  war,  where 
every  man  is  enemy  to  every  man,  the  same  is  consequent  to  the 


HOBBES  305 

time  wherein  men  live  without  other  security  than  what  their  own 
strength  and  their  own  invention  shall  furnish  them  withal.  In 
such  condition  there  is  no  place  for  industry,  because  the  fruit 
thereof  is  uncertain,  and  consequently  no  culture  of  the  earth;  no 
navigation,  nor  use  of  the  commodities  that  may  be  imported  by 
sea;  no  commodious  building;  no  instruments  of  moving  and  re- 
moving such  things  as  require  much  force;  no  knowledge  of  the 
face  of  the  earth;  no  account  of  time;  no  arts;  no  letters;  no  society; 
and,  which  is  worst  of  all,  continual  fear  and  danger  of  violent 
death;  and  the  life  of  man,  solitary,  poor,  nasty,  brutish,  and  short. 

It  may  seem  strange  to  some  man,  that  has  not  well  weighed 
these  things,  that  nature  should  thus  dissociate,  and  render  men 
apt  to  invade  and  destroy  one  another;  and  he  may  therefore,  not 
trusting  to  this  inference,  made  from  the  passions,  desire  perhaps 
to  have  the  same  confirmed  by  experience.  Let  him  therefore 
consider  with  himself,  when  taking  a  journey,  he  arms  himself, 
and  seeks  to  go  well  accompanied;  when  going  to  sleep,  he  locks 
his  doors;  when  even  in  his  house,  he  locks  his  chests;  and  this 
when  he  knows  there  be  laws,  and  public  officers,  armed,  to  revenge 
all  injuries  shall  be  done  him;  what  opinion  he  has  of  his  fellow- 
subjects,  when  he  rides  armed;  of  his  fellow-citizens,  when  he 
locks  his  doors ;  and  of  his  children  and  servants,  when  he  locks  his 
chests.  Does  he  not  there  as  much  accuse  mankind  by  his  actions 
as  I  do  by  my  words?  But  neither  of  us  accuse  man's  nature  in  it. 
The  desires  and  other  passions  of  man  are  in  themselves  no  sin. 
No  more  are  the  actions  that  proceed  from  those  passions,  till 
they  know  a  law  that  forbids  them;  which  till  laws  be  made  they 
cannot  know,  nor  can  any  law  be  made  till  they  have  agreed  upon 
the  person  that  shall  make  it. 

It  may  peradventure  be  thought  there  was  never  such  a  time 
nor  condition  of  war  as  this;  and  I  believe  it  was  never  generally 
so,  over  all  the  world,  but  there  are  many  places  where  they  live 
so  now.  For  the  savage  people  in  many  places  of  America,  except 
the  government  of  small  families,  the  concord  whereof  dependeth 
on  natural  lust,  have  no  government  at  all,  and  live  at  this  day  in 
that  brutish  manner,  as  I  said  before.  Howsoever,  it  may  be 
perceived  what  manner  of  life  there  would  be,  where  there  were 
no  common  r  jwer  to  fear,  by  the  manner  of  life  which  men  that 
have  formerly  lived  under  a  peaceful  government,  use  to  degenerate 
into  in  a  civil  war. 

But  though  there  had  never  been  any  time  wherein  particular 
men  were  in  a  condition  of  war  one  against  another;  yet  in  all  times, 
kings,  and  persons  of  sovereign  authority,  because  of  their  inde- 


306  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

pendency,  are  in  continual  jealousies  and  in  the  state  and  posture 
of  gladiators;  having  their  weapons  pointing,  and  their  eyes  fixed 
on  one  another;  that  is,  their  forts,  garrisons,  and  guns  upon  the 
frontiers  of  their  kingdoms;  and  continual  spies  upon  their  neigh- 
bors; which  is  a  posture  of  war.  But  because  they  uphold  there- 
by the  industry  of  their  subjects,  there  does  not  follow  from  it 
that  misery  which  accompanies  the  liberty  of  particular  men. 

To  this  war  of  every  man,  against  every  man,  this  also  is 
consequent:  that  nothing  can  be  unjust.  The  notions  of  right 
and  wrong,  justice  and  injustice,  have  there  no  place.  Where 
there  is  no  common  power,  there  is  no  law;  where  no  law,  no 
injustice.  Force  and  fraud  are  in  war  the  two  cardinal  virtues. 
Justice  and  injustice  are  none  of  the  faculties  neither  of  the  body 
nor  mind.  If  they  were,  they  might  be  in  a  man  that  were  alone 
in  the  world,  as  well  as  his  senses,  and  passions.  They  are  quali- 
ties that  relate  to  men  in  society,  not  in  solitude.  It  is  consequent 
also  to  the  same  condition,  that  there  be  no  propriety,  no  dominion, 
no  "mine"  and  "thine"  distinct;  but  only  that  to  be  every  man's 
that  he  can  get;  and  for  so  long  as  he  can  keep  it.  And  thus  much 
for  the  ill  condition  which  man  by  mere  nature  is  actually  placed 
in;  though  with  a  possibility  to  come  out  of  it,  consisting  partly  in 
the  passions,  partly  in  his  reason. 

The  passions  that  incline  men  to  peace  are  fear  of  death;  desire 
of  such  things  as  are  necessary  to  commodious  living;  and  a  hope 
by  their  industry  to  obtain  them.  And  reason  suggesteth  con- 
venient articles  of  peace,  upon  which  men  may  be  drawn  to  agree- 
ment. These  articles  are  they  which  otherwise  are  called  the 
laws  of  nature:  whereof  I  shall  speak  more  particularly  in  the 
two  following  chapters.  ^ 

Ch.  xiv.     Of  the  First  and  Second  Natural  Laws,  and  of  Contracts. 

"  The  right  of  nature,"  which  writers  commonly  call  jus  naturale, 
is  the  liberty  each  man  hath  to  use  his  own  power  as  he  will  himself, 
for  the  preservation  of  his  own  nature;  that  is  to  say,  of  his  own  life } 
and  consequently,  of  doing  anything  which  in  his  own  judgment 
and  reason  he  shall  conceive  to  be  the  aptest  means  thereunto* 

By  "liberty,"  is  understood,  according  to  the  proper  significa- 
tion of  the  word,  the  absence  of  external  impediments:  whicji  im- 
pediments may  oft  take  away  part  of  a  man's  power  to  do  what  he 
would;  but  cannot  hinder  him  from  using  the  power  left  him', 
according  as  his  judgment  and  reason  shall  dictate  to  him.- 

A  "law  of  nature,"  lex  naturalis,  is  a  precept  or  general  rule, 
found  out  by  reason,  by  which  a  man  is  forbidden  to  do  that  which 


HOBBES  307 

is  destructive  of  his  life,  or  taketh  away  the  means  of  preserving 
the  same;  and  to  omit  that  by  which  he  thinketh  it  may  be  best 
preserved.  For  though  they  that  speak  of  this  subject,  use  to 
confound  jus  and  lex,  "right"  and  "law,"  yet  they  ought  to  be 
distinguished;  because  "right"  consisteth  in  liberty  to  do  or 
to  forbear;  whereas  "law"  determineth  and  bindeth  to  one  of 
them;  so  that  law  and  right  differ  as  much  as  obligation  and 
liberty,  which  in  one  and  the  same  matter  are  inconsistent. 

And  because  the  condition  of  man,  as  hath  been  declared  in  the 
precedent  chapter,  is  a  condition  of  war  of  every  one  against 
every  one,  in  which  case  every  one  is  governed  by  his  own  reason, 
and  there  is  nothing  he  can  make  use  of  that  may  not  be  a  help 
unto  him  in  preserving  his  life  against  his  enemies,  it  followeth 
that  in  such  a  condition  every  man  has  a  right  to  everything, 
even  to  one  another's  body.  And  therefore,  as  long  as  this 
natural  right  of  every  man  to  everything  endureth,  there  can  be 
no  security  to  any  man,  how  strong  or  wise  soever  he  be,  of  living 
out  the  time  which  nature  ordinarily  alloweth  men  to  live.  And 
consequently  it  is  a  precept,  or  general  rule  of  reason,  "that  every 
man  ought  to  endeavor  peace,  as  far  as  he  has  hope  of  obtaining 
it;  and  when  he  cannot  obtain  it,  that  he  may  seek  and  use  all 
kelps  and  advantages  jrfwar, "  The  first  branch  of  which  rule 
containeth  the  firsthand  fundamental  law  of  nature;  which  is, 
"to  seek  peace,  and  follow  it."  The  second,  the  sum  of  the  right 
of  nature:  which  is,  "by  all  means  we  can,  to  defend  ourselves." 

From  this  fundamental  law  of  nature,  by  which  men  are  com- 
manded to  endeavor  peace,  is  derived  this  second  law:  "that  a 
man  be  willing,  when  others  are  so  too,  as  far-forth  as  for  peace 
and  defence  of  himself  he  shall  think  it  necessary,  to  lay  down  this 
right  to  all  things,  and  be  contented  with  so  much  liberty  against 
other  men  as  he  would  allow  other  men  against  himself. "  For  as 
long  as  every  man  holdeth  this  right  of  doing  anything  he  liketh, 
so  long  are  all  men  in  the  condition  of  war.  But  if  other  men  will 
not  lay  down  their  right,  as  well  as  he,  then  there  is  no  reason 
for  any  one  to  divest  himself  of  his :  for  that  were  to  expose  himself 
to  prey,  which  no  man  is  bound  to,  rather  than  to  dispose  himself 
to  peace.  This  is  that  law  of  the  Gospel:  "whatsoever  you 
require  that  others  should  do  to  you,  that  do  ye  to  them. "  And 
that  law  of  all  men,  quod  tibi  fieri  non  vis,  alteri  nefeceris. 

To  lay  down  a  man's  right  to  anything  is  to  divest  himself 
of  the  liberty  of  hindering  another  of  the  benefit  of  his  own 
right  to  the  same.  For  he  that  renounceth  or  passeth  away 
his  right,  giveth  not  to  any  other  man  a  right  which  he  had  not 


308  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

before,  because  there  is  nothing  to  which  every  man  had  not  right 
by  nature,  but  only  standeth  out  of  his  way,  that  he  may  enjoy 
his  own  original  right,  without  hindrance  from  him;  not  without 
hindrance  from  another.  So  that  the  effect  which  redoundeth 
to  one  man,  by  another  man's  defect  of  right,  is  but  so  much 
diminution  of  impediments  to  the  use  of  his  own  right  original. 

Right  is  laid  aside  either  by  simply  renouncing  it  or  by  trans- 
ferrmg  it  to  another.  By  simply  renouncing,  when  he  cares 
not  to  whom  the  benefit  thereof  redoundeth.  By  transferring, 
when  he  intendeth  the  benefit  thereof  to  some  certain  person 
or  persons.  And  when  a  man  hath  in  either  manner  abandoned 
or  granted  away  his  right,  then  is  he  said  to  be  obliged,  or 
bound,  not  to  hinder  those  to  whom  such  right  is  granted, 
or  abandoned,  from  the  benefit  of  it:  and  that  he  ought,  and  it 
is  his  duty,  not  to  make  void  that  voluntary  act  of  his  own: 
and  that  such  hindrance  is  injustice,  and  injury,  as  being 
sine  jure,  the  right  being  before  renounced,  or  transferred.  So 
that  injury,  or  injustice,  in  the  controversies  of  the  world  is 
somewhat  like  to  that  which  in  the  disputations  of  scholars 
is  called  absurdity.  For  as  it  is  there  called  an  absurdity  to 
contradict  what  one  maintained  in  the  beginning:  so  in  the  world 
it  is  called  injustice  and  injury  voluntarily  to  undo  that  which  from 
the  beginning  he  had  voluntarily  done.  The  way  by  which  a  man 
either  simply  renounceth  or  transferreth  his  right,  is  a  declaration, 
or  signification,  by  some  voluntary  and  sufficient  sign,  or  signs, 
that  he  doth  so  renounce  or  transfer,  or  hath  so  renounced  or 
transferred  the  same,  to  him  that  accepteth  it.  And  these  signs 
are  either  words  only,  or  actions  only;  or,  as  it  happeneth  most 
often,  both  words  and  actions.  And  the  same  are  the  bonds  by 
which  men  are  bound,  and  obliged :  bonds  that  have  their  strength, 
not  from  their  own  nature,  for  nothing  is  more  easily  broken  than 
a  man's  word,  but  from  fear  of  some  evil  consequence  upon  the 
rupture. 

Whensoever  a  man  transferreth  his  right,  or  renounceth  it,  it  is 
either  in  consideration  of  some  right  reciprocally  transferred  to 
himself,  or  for  some  other  good  he  hopeth  for  thereby.  For  it  is 
a  voluntary  act :  and  of  the  voluntary  acts  of  every  man,  the  object 
is  some  good  to  himself.  And  therefore  there  be  some  rights 
which  no  man  can  be  understood  by  any  words,  or  other  signs,  to 
have  abandoned  or  transferred.  As  first  a  man  cannot  lay  down 
the  right  of  resisting  them  that  assault  him  by  force  to  take  away 
his  life;  because  he  cannot  be  understood  to  aim  thereby  at  any 
good  to  himself.  The  same  may  be  said  of  wounds,  and  chains, 


HOBBES  309 

and  imprisonment;  both  because  there  is  no  benefit  consequent  to 
such  patience,  as  there  is  to  the  patience  of  suffering  another  to 
be  wounded  or  imprisoned,  as  also  because  a  man  cannot  tell, 
when  he  seeth  men  proceed  against  him  by  violence,  whether  they 
intend  his  death  or  not.  And  lastly  the  motive  and  end  for  which 
this  renouncing  and  transferring  of  right  is  introduced,  is  nothing 
else  but  the  security  of  a  man's  person,  in  his  life  and  in  the  means 
of  so  preserving  life,  as  not  to  be  weary  of  it.  And  therefore  if  a 
man  by  words,  or  other  signs,  seem  to  despoil  himself  of  the  end 
for  which  those  signs  were  intended,  he  is  not  to  be  understood  as 
if  he  meant  it,  or  that  it  was  his  will,  but  that  he  was  ignorant  of 
how  such  words  and  actions  were  to  be  interpreted. 

The  mutual  transferring  of  right  is  that  which  men  call  "con- 
tract. " 

A  covenant  not  to  defend  myself  from  force,  by  force,  is  always 
void.  For,  as  I  have  shown  before,  no  man  can  transfer  or  lay 
down  his  right  to  save  himself  from  death,  wounds,  and  imprison- 
ment, the  avoiding  whereof  is  the  only  end  of  laying  down  any 
right;  and  therefore  the  promise  of  not  resisting  force,  in  no  cove- 
nant transferreth  any  right,  nor  is  obliging.  For  though  a  man 
may  covenant  thus,  "unless  I  do  so,  or  so,  kill  me,"  he  cannot 
covenant  thus,  "unless  I  do  so,  or  so,  I  will  not  resist  you  when  you 
come  to  kill  me."  For  man  by  nature  chooseth  the  lesser  evil, 
which  is  danger  of  death  in  resisting,  rather  than  the  greater, 
which  is  certain  and  present  death  in  not  resisting.  And  this  is 
granted  to  be  true  by  all  men,  in  that  they  lead  criminals  to  execu- 
tion and  prison  with  armed  men,  notwithstanding  that  such 
criminals  have  consented  to  the  law  by  which  they  are  condemned. 

A  covenant  to  accuse  oneself,  without  assurance  of  pardon,  is 
likewise  invalid.  For  in  the  condition  of  nature,  where  every  man 
is  judge,  there  is  no  place  for  accusation:  and  in  the  civil  state,  the 
accusation  is  followed  with  punishment,  which  being  force,  a  man 
is  not  obliged  not  to  resist.  The  same  is  also  true  of  the  accusation 
of  those  by  whose  condemnation  a  man  falls  into  misery;  as  of  a 
father,  wife,  or  benefactor.  For  the  testimony  of  such  an  accuser, 
if  it  be  not  willingly  given,  is  presumed  to  be  corrupted  by  nature, 
and  therefore  not  to  be  received:  and  where  a  man's  testimony  is 
not  to  be  credited,  he  is  not  bound  to  give  it.  Also  accusations 
upon  torture  are  not  to  be  reputed  as  testimonies.  For  torture  is 
to  be  used  but  as  means  of  conjecture  and  light,  in  the  further 
examination  and  search  of  truth ;  and  what  is  in  that  case  confessed, 
tendeth  to  the  ease  of  him  that  is  tortured,  not  to  the  informing 


310  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  torturers,  and  therefore  ought  not  to  have  the  credit  of 
a  sufficient  testimony;  for  whether  he  deliver  himself  by  true  or 
false  accusation,  he  does  it  by  the  right  of  preserving  his  own  life. 

The  force  of  words  being,  as  I  have  formerly  noted,  too  weak  to 
hold  men  to  the  performance  of  their  covenants,  there  are  in  man's 
nature  but  two  imaginable  helps  to  strengthen  it.  And  those  are 
either  a  fear  of  the  consequence  of  breaking  their  word,  or  a  glory 
or  pride  in  appearing  not  to  need  to  break  it.  This  latter  is  a 
generosity  too  rarely  found  to  be  presumed  on,  especially  in  the 
pursuers  of  wealth,  command,  or  sensual  pleasure,  which  are  the 
greatest  part  of  mankind.  The  passion  to  be  reckoned  upon  is 
fear,  whereof  there  be  two  very  general  objects:  one,  the  power 
of  spirits  invisible;  the  other,  the  power  of  those  men  they  shall 
therein  offend.  Of  these  two,  though  the  former  be  the  greater 
power,  yet  the  fear  of  the  latter  is  commonly  the  greater  fear.  The 
fear  of  the  former  is  in  every  man  his  own  religion,  which  hath 
place  in  the  nature  of  man  before  civil  society.  The  latter  hath 
not  so,  at  least  not  place  enough  to  keep  men  to  their  promises; 
because  in  the  condition  of  mere  nature,  the  inequality  of  power 
is  not  discerned,  but  by  the  event  of  battle.  So  that  before  the 
\  time  of  civil  society,  or  in  the  interruption  thereof  by  war,  there  is 
•\  nothing  can  strengthen  a  covenant  of  peace  agreed  on,  against  the 
temptations  of  avarice,  ambition,  lust,  or  other  strong  desire,  but 
the  fear  of  that  invisible  power,  which  they  every  one  worship  as 
God,  and  fear  as  a  revenger  of  their  perfidy.  All  therefore  that 
can  be  done  between  two  men  not  subject  to  civil  power,  is  to 
put  one  another  to  swear  by  the  God  he  feareth,  which  "  swearing, " 
or  "oath,"  is  "a  form  of  speech  added  to  a  promise;  by  which  he 
that  promiseth,  signifieth  that  unless  he  perform,  he  renounce th 
the  mercy  of  his  God,  or  calleth  to  Him  for  vengeance  on  himself. " 
Such  was  the  heathen  form,  "Let  Jupiter  kill  me  else,  as  I  kill 
this  beast."  So  is  our  form,  "I  shall  do  thus,  and  thus,  so  help 
me  God."  And  this,  with  the  rites  and  ceremonies  which  every 
one  useth  in  his  own  religion,  that  the  fear  of  breaking  faith  might 
be  the  greater. 

By  this  it  appears  that  an  oath  taken  according  to  any  other 
form,  or  rite,  than  his  that  sweareth,  is  in  vain,  and  no  oath:  and 
that  there  is  no  swearing  by  anything  which  the  swearer  thinks  not 
God.  For  though  men  have  sometimes  used  to  swear  by  their 
kings,  for  fear,  or  flattery;  yet  they  would  have  it  thereby  under- 
stood, they  attributed  to  them  divine  honor.  And  that  swearing 
unnecessarily  by  God,  is  but  profaning  of  His  name:  and  swearing 
by  other  things  as  men  do  in  common  discourse,  is  not  swearing, 


HOBBES  311 

but  an  impious  custom,  gotten  by  too   much   vehemence   of 
talking. 

It  appears  also  that  the  oath  adds  nothing  to  the  obligation. 
For  a  covenant,  if  lawful,  binds  in  the  sight  of  God,  without  the 
oath,  as  much  as  with  it:  if  unlawful,  bindeth  not  at  all;  though  it 
be  confirmed  with  an  oath. 

Ch.  xv.     Of  other  Laws  of  Nature. 

From  that  law  of  nature,  by  which  we  are  obliged  to  transfer  to 
another  such  rights,  as  being  retained,  hinder  the  peace  of  man-  : 
kind,  there  followeth  a  third;  which  is  this,  "that  men  perform  their 
covenants  made;"  without  which,  covenants  are  in  vain,  and  but 
empty  words;  and  the  right  of  all  men  to  all  things  remaining, 
we  are  still  in  the  condition  of  war. 

And  in  this  law  of  nature  consisteth  the  fountain  and  original 
of  justice.  For  where  no  covenant  hath  preceded,  there  hath  no 
right  been  transferred,  and  every  man  has  right  to  everything; 
and  consequently,  no  action  can  be  unjust.  But  when  a  covenant 
is  made,  then  to  break  it  is  unjust:  and  the  definition  of  injustice 
is  no  other  than  the  not  performance  of  covenant.  And  what-/ 
soever  is  not  unjust  is  just. 

But  because  covenants  of  mutual  trust,  where  there  is  a  fear 
of  not  performance  on  either  part,  as  hath  been  said  in  the  former 
chapter,  are  invalid,  though  the  original  of  justice  be  the  making 
of  covenants,  yet  injustice  actually  there  can  be  none,  till  the 
cause  of  such  fear  be  taken  away;  which  while  men  are  in  the 
natural  condition  of  war  cannot  be  done.  Therefore  before  the 
names  of  just  and  unjust  can  have  place,  there  must  be  some 
coercive  power  to  compel  men  equally  to  the  performance  of  their 
covenants,  by  the  terror  of  some  punishment,  greater  than  the 
benefit  they  expect  by  the  breach  of  their  covenant;  and  to  make 
good  that  propriety,  which  by  mutual  contract  men  acquire,  in 
recompense  of  the  universal  right  they  abandon:  and  such  power 
there  is  none  before  the  erection  of  a  commonwealth.  And  this 
is  also  to  be  gathered  out  of  the  ordinary  definition  of  justice 
in  the  schools:  for  they  say  that  justice  is  the  constant  will  of 
giving  to  every  man  his  own.  And  therefore  where  there  is  no 
"  own,"  that  is  no  propriety,  there  is  no  injustice;  and  where  there 
is  no  coercive  power  erected,  that  is,  where  there  is  no  common-/ 
wealth,  there  is  no  propriety,  all  men  having  right  to  all  things: 
therefore  where  there  is  no  commonwealth,  there  nothing  is  unjust. 
So  that  the  nature  of  justice  consisteth  in  keeping  of  valid  cove-] 
nants;  but  the  validity  of  covenants  begins  not  but  with  the  con- 


312  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

stitution  of  a  civil  power,  sufficient  to  compel  men  to  keep  them; 
and  then  it  is  also  that  propriety  begins. 

The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  justice; 
and  sometimes  also  with  his  tongue;  seriously  alleging  that  every 
man's  conservation,  and  contentment,  being  committed  to  his 
own  care,  there  could  be  no  reason  why  every  man  might  not  do 
what  he  thought  conduced  thereunto:  and  therefore  also  to  make, 
or  not  make,  keep,  or  not  keep  covenants,  was  not  against  reason, 
when  it  conduced  to  one's  benefit.  He  does  not  therein  deny  that 
there  be  covenants;  and  that  they  are  sometimes  broken,  some- 
times kept,  and  that  such  breach  of  them  may  be  called  injustice, 
and  the  observance  of  them  justice;  but  he  questioneth  whether 
injustice,  taking  away  the  fear  of  God,  for  the  same  fool  hath  said 
in  his  heart  there  is  no  God,  may  not  sometimes  stand  with  that 
reason  which  dictateth  to  every  man  his  own  good;  and  particu- 
larly then,  when  it  conduceth  to  such  a  benefit  as  shall  put  a  man 
in  a  condition  to  neglect  not  only  the  dispraise,  and  revilings,  but 
also  the  power  of  other  men.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  gotten  by 
violence;  but  what  if  it  could  be  gotten  by  unjust  violence?  were 
it  against  reason  so  to  get  it,  when  it  is  impossible  to  receive  hurt 
by  it?  and  if  it  be  not  against  reason,  it  is  not  against  justice;  or 
else  justice  is  not  to  be  approved  for  good.  From  such  reasoning  as 
this,  successful  wickedness  hath  obtained  the  name  of  virtue;  and 
some  that  in  all  other  things  have  disallowed  the  violation  of  faith, 
yet  have  allowed  it  when  it  is  for  the  getting  of  a  kingdom.  And 
the  heathen  that  believed  that  Saturn  was  deposed  by  his  son 
Jupiter,  believed  nevertheless  the  same  Jupiter  to  be  the  avenger 
of  injustice;  somewhat  like  to  a  piece  of  law  in  Coke's  "Commen- 
taries on  Littleton;"  where  he  says,  if  the  right  heir  of  the  crown 
be  attainted  of  treason,  yet  the  crown  shall  descend  to  him,  and 
eo  instante  the  attainder  be  void :  from  which  instances  a  man  will 
be  very  prone  to  infer  that  when  the  heir  apparent  of  a  kingdom 
shall  kill  him  that  is  in  possession,  though  his  father,  you  may  call 
it  injustice,  or  by  what  other  name  you  will;  yet  it  can  never  be 
against  reason,  seeing  all  the  voluntary  actions  of  men  tend  to  the 
benefit  of  themselves;  and  those  actions  are  most  reasonable  that 
conduce  most  to  their  ends.  This  specious  reasoning  is  neverthe- 
less false. 

For  the  question  is  not  of  promises  mutual,  where  there  is  no 
security  of  performance  on  either  side;  as  when  there  is  no  civil 
power  erected  over  the  parties  promising;  for  such  promises  are 
no  covenants:  but  either  where  one  of  the  parties  has  performed 
already,  or  where  there  is  a  power  to  make  him  perform,  there  is 


HOBBES  313 

the  question  whether  it  be  against  reason,  that  is,  against  the  bene- 
fit of  the  other  to  perform  or  not.  And  I  say  it  is  not  against 
reason.  For  the  manifestation  whereof  we  are  to  consider;  first, 
that  when  a  man  doth  a  thing,  which  notwithstanding  anything 
can  be  foreseen  and  reckoned  on,  tendeth  to  his  own  destruction, 
howsoever  some  accident  which  he  could  not  expect,  arriving 
may  turn  it  to  his  benefit,  yet  such  events  do  not  make  it  reason- 
ably or  wisely  done.  Secondly,  that  in  a  condition  of  war,  wherein 
every  man  to  every  man,  for  want  of  a  common  power  to  keep 
them  all  in  awe,  is  an  enemy,  there  is  no  man  who  can  hope  by 
his  own  strength,  or  wit,  to  defend  himself  from  destruction,  with- 
out the  help  of  confederates;  where  every  one  expects  the  same 
defence  by  the  confederation  that  any  one  else  does :  and  therefore 
he  which  declares  he  thinks  it  reason  to  deceive  those  that  help 
him,  can  in  reason  expect  no  other  means  of  safety  than  what  can 
be  had  from  his  own  single  power.  He  therefore  that  breaketh 
his  covenant,  and  consequently  declareth  that  he  thinks  he  may 
with  reason  do  so,  cannot  be  received  into  any  society  that  unite 
themselves  for  peace  and  defence,  but  by  the  error  of  them  that 
receive  him;  nor  when  he  is  received,  be  retained  in  it,  without 
seeing  the  danger  of  their  error;  which  errors  a  man  cannot  reason- 
ably reckon  upon  as  the  means  of  his  security;  and  therefore  if  he 
be  left,  or  cast  out  of  society,  he  perisheth;  and  if  he  live  in  society, 
it  is  by  the  errors  of  other  men,  which  he  could  not  foresee,  nor 
reckon  upon;  and  consequently  against  the  reason  of  his  preserva- 
tion; and  so,  as  all  men  that  contribute  not  to  his  destruction,  for- 
bear him  only  out  of  ignorance  of  what  is  good  for  themselves. 

As  for  the  instance  of  gaining  the  secure  and  perpetual  felicity 
of  heaven,  by  any  way,  it  is  frivolous:  there  being  but  one  way 
imaginable ;  and  that  is  not  breaking,  but  keeping  of  covenant^ 

And  for  the  other  instance  of  attaining  sovereignty  by  rebellion; 
it  is  manifest  that  though  the  event  follow,  yet  because  it  cannot 
reasonably  be  expected,  but  rather  the  contrary,  and  because  by 
gaining  it  so  others  are  taught  to  gain  the  same  in  like  manner, 
the  attempt  thereof  is  against  reason.  Justice  therefore,  that  is 
to  say,  keeping  of  covenant,  is  a  rule  of  reason,  by  which  we  are  ' 
forbidden  to  do  anything  destructive  to  our  life;  and  consequently 
a  law  of  nature. 

There  be  some  that  proceed  further;  and  will  not  have  the  law  of 
nature  to  be  those  rules  which  conduce  to  the  preservation  of  man's 
life  on  earth;  but  to  the  attaining  of  an  eternal  felicity  after  death; 
to  which  they  think  the  breach  of  government  may  conduce,  and 
consequently  be  just  and  reasonable;  such  are  they  that  think  it 


314  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

a  work  of  merit  to  kill,  or  depose,  or  rebel  against  the  sovereign 
power  constituted  over  them  by  their  own  consent.  But  because 
there  is  no  natural  knowledge  of  man's  estate  after  death,  much 
less  of  the  reward  that  is  then  to  be  given  to  breach  of  faith,  but 
only  a  belief  grounded  upon  other  men's  saying  that  they  know 
it  supernaturally,  or  that  they  know  those  that  knew  them  that 
knew  others  that  knew  it  supernaturally,  breach  of  faith  cannot 
be  called  a  precept  of  reason  or  nature. 

Others,  that  allow  for  a  law  of  nature  the  keeping  of  faith,  do 
nevertheless  make  exception  of  certain  persons;  as  heretics,  and 
such  as  use  not  to  perform  their  covenant  to  others;  and  this  also 
is  against  reason.  For  if  any  fault  of  a  man  be  sufficient  to  dis- 
charge our  covenant  made,  the  same  ought  in  reason  to  have  been 
sufficient  to  have  hindered  the  making  of  it. 

These  are  the  laws  of  nature,  dictating  peace,  for  a  means  of 
the  conservation  of  men  in  multitudes;  and  which  only  concern 
the  doctrine  of  civil  society.  There  be  other  things  tending  to  the 
destruction  of  particular  men;  as  drunkenness,  and  all  other 
parts  of  intemperance;  which  may  therefore  also  be  reckoned 
amongst  those  things  which  the  law  of  nature  hath  forbidden; 
but  are  not  necessary  to  be  mentioned,  nor  are  pertinent  enough 
to  this  place. 

And  though  this  may  seem  too  subtle  a  deduction  of  the  laws  of 
nature  to  be  taken  notice  of  by  all  men,  whereof  the  most  part 
are  too  busy  in  getting  food,  and  the  rest  too  negligent  to  under- 
stand, yet  to  leave  all  men  inexcusable,  they  have  been  contracted 
into  one  easy  sum,  intelligible  even  to  the  meanest  capacity;  and 
that  is,  "  Do  not  that  to  another,  which  thou  wouldst  not  have  done 
to  thyself;''  which  showeth  him  that  he  has  no  more  to  do  in 
learning  the  laws  of  nature,  but  when  weighing  the  actions  of 
other  men  with  his  own,  they  seem  too  heavy,  he  put  them  into  the 
other  part  of  the  balance,  and  his  own  into  their  place,  that  his 
own  passions  and  self-love  may  add  nothing  to  the  weight;  and 
then  there  is  none  of  these  laws  of  nature  that  will  not  appear 
unto  him  very  reasonable. 

The  laws  of  nature  oblige  in  foro  interno — that  is  to  say,  they 
bind  to  a  desire  they  should  take  place;  but  in  foro  externo — that  is, 
to  the  putting  them  in  act,  not  always.  For  he  that  should  be 
modest,  and  tractable,  and  perform  all  he  promises,  in  such  time 
and  place  where  no  man  else  should  do  so,  should  but  make  himself 
a  prey  to  others,  and  procure  his  own  certain  ruin,  contrary  to  the 
ground  of  all  laws  of  nature,  which  tend  to  nature's  preservation. 


HOBBES  315 

And  again,  he  that  having  sufficient  security  that  others  shall 
observe  the  same  laws  towards  him,  observes  them  not  himself, 
seeketh  not  peace,  but  war;  and  consequently  the  destruction  of 
his  nature  by  violence. 

And  whatsoever  laws  bind  in  for o  interno,  may  be  broken,  not 
only  by  a  fact  contrary  to  the  law,  but  also  by  a  fact  according 
to  it,  in  case  a  man  think  it  contrary.  For  though  his  action  in 
this  case  be  according  to  the  law,  yet  his  purpose  was  against  the 
law;  which,  where  the  obligation  is  in  foro  interno,  is  a  breach. 

The  laws  of  nature  are  immutable  and  eternal;   for  injustice,  ' 
ingratitude,  arrogance,  pride,  iniquity,  acception  of  persons,  and 
the  rest,  can  never  be  made  lawful.     For  it  can  never  be  that  war 
shall  preserve  life,  and  peace  destroy  it. 

The  same  laws,  because  they  oblige  only  to  a  desire  and  endea- 
vor, I  mean  an  unfeigned  and  constant  endeavor,  are  easy  to 
be  observed.  For  in  that  they  require  nothing  but  endeavor, 
he  that  endeavoreth  their  performance,  fulfilleth  them;  and  he 
that  fulfilleth  the  law,  is  just. 

And  the  science  of  them  is  the  true  and  only  moral  philosophy. 
For  moral  philosophy  is  nothing  else  but  the  science  of  what  is 
good  and  evil,  in  the  conversation  and  society  of  mankind. 
"Good"  and  "evil"  are  names  that  signify  our  appetites  and 
aversions;  which  in  different  tempers,  customs,  and  doctrines 
of  men,  are  different :  and  divers  men  differ  not  only  in  their  judg- 
ment, on  the  senses  of  what  is  pleasant  and  unpleasant  to  the  taste, 
smell,  hearing,  touch,  and  sight;  but  also  of  what  is  conformable 
or  disagreeable  to  reason,  in  the  actions  of  common  life.  Nay,  the 
same  man,  in  divers  times,  differs  from  himself;  and  one  time 
praiseth,  that  is,  calleth  good,  what  another  time  he  dispraiseth, 
and  calleth  evil:  from  whence  arise  disputes,  controversies,  and 
at  last  war.  And  therefore  so  long  as  a  man  is  in  the  condition 
of  mere  nature,  which  is  a  condition  of  war,  his  private  appetite  is 
the  measure  of  good  and  evil:  and  consequently  all  men  agree  on 
this,  that  peace  is  good,  and  therefore  also  the  way  or  means  oL  , 
peace,  which,  as  I  have  showed  before,  are  "justice,"  "gratitude,'*^ 
"modesty,"  "equity,"  "mercy,"  and  the  rest  of  the  laws  of 
nature,  are  good;  that  is  to  say,  moral  virtues;  and  their  con- 
trary vices,  evil.  Now  the  science  of  virtue  and  vice  is  moral 
philosophy;  and  therefore  the  true  doctrine  of  the  laws  of  nature 
is  the  true  moral  philosophy.  But  the  writers  of  moral  philosophy, 
though  they  acknowledge  the  same  virtues  and  vices,  yet  not  seeing 
wherein  consisted  their  goodness,  nor  that  they  come  to  be  praised 
as  the  means  of  peaceable,  sociable,  and  comfortable  living,  place 


316  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

them  in  a  mediocrity  of  passions :  as  if  not  the  cause,  but  the  degree 
of  daring,  made  fortitude;  or  not  the  cause,  but  the  quantity  of  a 
gift,  made  liberality. 

These  dictates  of  reason,  men  used  to  call  by  the  name  of  laws, 
but  improperly:  for  they  are  but  conclusions  or  theorems  concern- 
ing what  conduceth  to  the  conservation  and  defence  of  themselves : 
whereas  law,  properly,  is  the  word  of  him  that  by  right  hath  com- 
mand over  others.  But  yet  if  we  consider  the  same  theorems  as 
delivered  in  the  word  of  God,  that  by  right  commandeth  all  things, 
then  are  they  properly  called  laws. 

2.     The  Origin  and  Nature  of  the  State  l 

Ch.  xvii.  Of  the  Causes,  Generation,  and  Definition  of  a  Com- 
monwealth. 

The  final  cause,  end,  or  design  of  men,  who  naturally  love  liberty, 
and  dominion  over  others,  in  the  introduction  of  that  restraint 
upon  themselves,  in  which  we  see  them  live  in  commonwealths,  is 
the  foresight  of  their  own  preservation,  and  of  a  more  contented 
life  thereby;  that  is  to  say,  of  getting  themselves  o^it  from  that 
miserable  condition  of  war,  which  is  necessarily  consequent,  as 
hath  been  shown  in  chapter  xiii,  to  the  natural  passions  of  men, 
when  there  is  no  visible  power  to  keep  them  in  awe,  and  tie  them 
by  fear  of  punishment  to  the  performance  of  their  covenants,  and 
observation  of  those  laws  of  nature  set  down  in  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  chapters. 

For  the  laws  of  nature,  as  " justice,"  " equity,"  " modesty," 
"mercy,"  and,  in  sum,  "doing  to  others  as  we  would  be  done  to," 
of  themselves,  without  the  terror  of  some  power  to  cause  them  to 
be  observed,  are  contrary  to  our  natural  passions,  that  carry  us 
to  partiality,  pride,  revenge,  and  the  like.  And  covenants,  with- 
out the  sword,  are  but  words,  and  of  no  strength  to  secure  a  man 
at  all.  Therefore  notwithstanding  the  laws  of  nature,  which  every 
one  hath  then  kept,  when  he  has  the  will  to  keep  them,  when  he 
can  do  it  safely,  if  there  be  no  power  erected,  or  not  great  enough 
for  our  security,  every  man  will  and  may  lawfully  rely  on  his  own 
strength  and  art,  for  caution  against  all  other  men.  And  in  all 
places  where  men  have  lived  by  small  families,  to  rob  and  spoil 
one  another  has  been  a  trade,  and  so  far  from  being  reputed  against 
the  law  of  nature,  that  the  greater  spoils  they  gained,  the  greater 
was  their  honor;  and  men  observed  no  other  laws  therein,  but 
the  laws  of  honor;  that  is,  to  abstain  from  cruelty,  leaving  to 

1  Part  II,  ch.  xvii. 


HOBBES  317 

men  their  lives,  and  instruments  of  husbandry.  And  as  small 
families  did  then,  so  now  do  cities  and  kingdoms,  which  are  but 
greater  families,  for  their  own  security,  enlarge  their  dominions, 
upon  all  pretences  of  danger,  and  fear  of  invasion,  or  assistance 
that  may  be  given  to  invaders,  and  endeavor  as  much  as  they  can 
to  subdue  or  weaken  their  neighbors,  by  open  force  and  secret 
arts,  for  want  of  other  caution,  justly;  and  are  remembered  for  it 
in  after  ages  with  honor. 

Nor  is  it  the  joining  together  of  a  small  number  of  men  that  / 
gives  them  this  security;  because  in  small  numbers,  small  additions 
on  the  one  side  or  the  other  make  the  advantage  of  strength  so 
great  as  is  sufficient  to  carry  the  victory;  and  therefore  gives  en- 
couragement to  an  invasion.  The  multitude  sufficient  to  confide 
in  for  our  security  is  not  determined  by  any  certain  number,  but 
by  comparison  with  the  enemy  we  fear;  and  is  then  sufficient,  when 
the  odds  of  the  enemy  is  not  of  so  visible  and  conspicuous  moment 
to  determine  the  event  of  war,  as  to  move  him  to  attempt. 

And  be  there  never  so  great  a  multitude ;  yet  if  their  actions  be 
directed  according  to  their  particular  judgments  and  particular 
appetites,  they  can  expect  thereby  no  defence,  nor  protection, 
neither  against  a  common  enemy,  nor  against  the  injuries  of  one 
another.  For  being  distracted  in  opinions  concerning  the  best 
use  and  application  of  their  strength,  they  do  not  help  but  hinder 
one  another;  and  reduce  their  strength  by  mutual  opposition  to 
nothing :  whereby  they  are  easily,  not  only  subdued  by  a  very  few 
that  agree  together;  but  also  when  there  is  no  common  enemy, 
they  make  war  upon  each  other,  for  their  particular  interests. 
For  if  we  could  suppose  a  great  multitude  of  men  to  consent  in  the 
observation  of  justice,  and  other  laws  of  nature,  without  a  common 
power  to  keep  them  all  in  awe,  we  might  as  well  suppose  all  man- 
kind to  do  the  same ;  and  then  there  neither  would  be  nor  need  to 
be  any  civil  government  or  commonwealth  at  all;  because  there 
would  be  peace  without  subjection. 

Nor  is  it  enough  for  the  security,  which  men  desire  should  last 
all  the  time  of  their  life,  that  they  be  governed  and  directed  by  one 
judgment^  for  a  limited  time:  as  in  one  battle,  or  one  war.  For 
though  they  obtain  a  victory  by  their  unanimous  endeavor 
against  a  foreign  enemy;  yet  afterwards,  when  either  they  have 
no  common  enemy,  or  he  that  by  one  part  is  held  for  an  enemy  is 
by  another  part  held  for  a  friend,  they  must  needs  by  the  difference 
of  their  interests  dissolve,  and  fall  again  into  a  war  amongst 
themselves. 

It  is  true  that  certain  living  creatures,  as  bees  and  ants,  live 


318  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

sociably  one  with  another,  which  are  therefore  by  Aristotle  num- 
bered amongst  political  creatures;  and  yet  have  no  other  direction 
than  their  particular  judgments  and  appetites;  nor  speech,  whereby 
one  of  them  can  signify  to  another  what  he  thinks  expedient  for 
the  common  benefit:  and  therefore  some  man  may  perhaps  desire 
to  know  why  mankind  cannot  do  the  same.  To  which  I  answer, 

First,  that  men  are  continually  in  competition  for  honor  and 
dignity,  which  these  creatures  are  not;  and  consequently  amongst 
men  there  ariseth  on  that  ground,  envy  and  hatred,  and  finally 
war;  but  amongst  these  not  so. 

Secondly,  that  amongst  these  creatures,  the  common  good 
differeth  not  from  the  private;  and  being  by  nature  inclined  to 
their  private,  they  procure  thereby  the  common  benefit.  But 
man,  whose  joy  consisteth  in  comparing  himself  with  other  men, 
can  relish  nothing  but  what  is  eminent. 

Thirdly,  that  these  creatures,  having  not,  as  man,  the  use  of 
reason,  do  not  see,  nor  think  they  see  any  fault  in  the  administra- 
tion of  their  common  business;  whereas  amongst  men,  there  are 
very  many  that  think  themselves  wiser  and  abler  to  govern  the 
public  better  than  the  rest;  and  these  strive  to  reform  and  inno- 
vate, one  this  way,  another  that  way,  and  thereby  bring  it  into 
distraction  and  civil  war. 

Fourthly,  that  these  creatures,  though  they  have  some  use  of 
voice,  in  making  known  to  one  another  their  desires  and  other 
affections;  yet  they  want  that  art  of  words  by  which  some  men 
can  represent  to  others  that  which  is  good  in  the  likeness  of  evil, 
and  evil  in  the  likeness  of  good,  and  augment  or  diminish  the 
apparent  greatness  of  good  and  evil;  discontenting  men,  and 
troubling  their  peace  at  their  pleasure. 

Fifthly,  irrational  creatures  cannot  distinguish  between  injury 
and  damage;  and  therefore  as  long  as  they  be  at  ease,  they  are 
not  offended  with  their  fellows:  whereas  man  is  then  most  trouble- 
some when  he  is  most  at  ease ;  for  then  it  is  that  he  loves  to  show 
his  wisdom,  and  control  the  actions  of  them  that  govern  the  com- 
monwealth. 

Lastly,  the  agreement  of  these  creatures  is  natural ;  that  of  men 
is  by  covenant  only,  which  is  artificial :  and  therefore  it  is  no  wonder 
if  there  be  somewhat  else  required,  besides  covenant,  to  make  their 
agreement  constant  and  lasting;  which  is  a  common  power,  to 
keep  them  in  awe,  and  to  direct  their  actions  to  the  common  benefit. 

KThe  only  way  to  erect  such  a  common  power  as  may  be  able  to 
defend  them  from  the  invasion  of  foreigners  and  the  injuries 
of  one  another,  and  thereby  to  secure  them  in  such  sort  as  that 


HOBBES  319 

by  their  own  industry,  and  by  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  they  may 
nourish  themselves  and  live  contentedly,  is  to  confer  all  their 
power  and  strength  upon  one  man,  or  upon  one  assembly  of  men, 
that  may  reduce  all  their  wills,  by  plurality  of  voices,  unto  one 
will:  which  is  as  much  as  to  say,  to  appoint  one  man,  or  assembly  of 
men,  to  bear  their  person;  and  every  one  to  own  and  acknowledge 
himself  to  be  author  of  whatsoever  he  that  so  beareth  their  person 
shall  act,  or  cause  to  be  acted,  in  those  things  which  concern  the 
common  peace  and  safety;  and  therein  to  submit  their  wills,  every 
one  to  his  will,  and  their  judgments  to  his  judgment.  This  is 
more  than  consent,  or  concord;  it  is  a  real  unity  of  them  all  in 
one  and  the  same  person,  made  by  covenant  of  every  man  with 
every  man,  in  such  manner  as  if  every  man  should  say  to  every 
man,  "I  authorize  and  give  up  my  right  of  governing  myself,  to\ 
this  man  or  to  this  assembly  of  men,  on  this  condition,  that  thou  j 
give  up  thy  right  to  him  and  authorize  all  his  actions  in  like  man-  ' 
ner. "  This  done,  the  multitude  so  united  in  one  person  is  called 
a  "  commonwealth, "  in  Latin  cimtas.  This  is  the  generation  of 
that  great  leviathan,  or  rather,  to  speak  more  reverently,  of 
that  mortal  god,  to  which  we  owe  under  the  immortal  God,  our 
peace  and  defence.  For  by  this  authority,  given  him  by  every 
particular  man  in  the  commonwealth,  he  hath  the  use  of  so  much 
power  and  strength  conferred  on  him,  that  by  terror  thereof,  he 
is  enabled  to  perform  the  wills  of  them  all,  to  peace  at  home,  and 
mutual  aid  against  their  enemies  abroad.  And  in  him  consisteth 
the  essence  of  the  commonwealth;  which,  to  define  it,  is  "one  per- 
son, of  whose  acts  a  great  multitude,  by  mutual  covenants  one 
with  another,  have  made  themselves  every  one  the  author,  to 
the  end  he  may  use  the  strength  and  means  of  them  all,  as  he  shall 
think  expedient,  for  their  peace  and  common  defence. " 

And  he  that  carrieth  this  person  is  called  sovereign,  and  said  to 
have  sovereign  power;  and  every  one  besides,  his  subject. 

The  attaining  to  this  sovereign  power  is  by  two  ways.  One,  by 
natural  force;  as  when  a  man  maketh  his  children  to  submit  them- 
selves, and  their  children,  to  his  government,  as  being  able  to 
destroy  them  if  they  refuse ;  or  by  war  subdueth  his  enemies  to  his 
will,  giving  them  their  lives  on  that  condition.  The  other  is 
when  men  agree  amongst  themselves  to  submit  to  some  man,  or 
assembly  of  men,  voluntarily,  on  confidence  to  be  protected  by 
him  against  all  others.  This  latter  may  be  called  a  political  com- 
monwealth, or  commonwealth  by  institution;  and  the  former,  a 
commonwealth  by  acquisition.  And  first,  I  shall  speak  of  a  com- 
monwealth by  institution. 


320  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

3.    Sovereignty l 

Ch.  xviii.     Of  the  Rights  of  Sovereignty  by  Institution. 

LA  commonwealth  is  said  to  be  instituted  when  a  multitude  of 
en  do  agree  and  covenant,  every  one  with  every  one,  that  to 
whatsoever  man  or  assembly  of  men  shall  be  given  by  the  major 
part  the  right  to  present  the  person  of  them  all,  that  is  to 
say,  to  be  their  representative;  every  one,  as  well  he  that  voted 
for  it  as  he  that  voted  against  it,  shall  authorize  all  the  actions 
and  judgments  of  that  man  or  assembly  of  men  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  if  they  were  his  own,  to  the  end  to  live  peaceably  amongst 
themselves  and  be  protected  against  other  men. 

From  this  institution  of  a  commonwealth  are  derived  all  the 
rights  and  faculties  of  him,  or  them,  on  whom  sovereign  power 
is  conferred  by  the  consent  of  the  people  assembled. 

First,  because  they  covenant,  it  is  to  be  understood,  they  are  not 
obliged  by  former  covenant  to  anything  repugnant  hereunto.  And 
consequently  that  they  have  already  instituted  a  commonwealth, 
being  thereby  bound  by  covenant  to  own  the  actions  and  judg- 
ments of  one,  cannot  lawfully  make  a  new  covenant  amongst 
themselves  to  be  obedient  to  any  other  in  any  thing  whatsoever, 
without  his  permission.  And  therefore,  they  that  are  subjects 
to  a  monarch,  cannot  without  his  leave  cast  off  monarchy,  and 
return  to  the  confusion  of  a  disunited  multitude;  nor  transfer  their 
person  from  him  that  beareth  it,  to  another  man,  or  other  assembly 
of  men:  for  they  are  bound,  every  man  to  every  man,  to  own  and 
be  reputed  author  of  all  that  he  that  already  is  their  sovereign 
shall  do,  and  judge  fit  to  be  done:  so  that  any  one  man  dissenting, 
all  the  rest  should  break  their  covenant  made  to  that  man,  which  is 
injustice:  and  they  have  also  every  man  given  the  sovereignty  to 
him  that  beareth  their  person;  and  therefore  if  they  depose  him, 
they  take  from  him  that  which  is  his  own,  and  so  again  it  is  injus- 
tice. Besides,  if  he  that  attempteth  to  depose  his  sovereign  be 
killed,  or  punished  by  him  for  such  attempt,  he  is  author  of  his 
own  punishment,  as  being  by  the  institution  author  of  all  his 
sovereign  shall  do :  and  because  it  is  injustice  for  a  man  to  do  any- 
thing for  which  he  may  be  punished  by  his  own  authority,  he  is 
also  upon  that  title  unjust.  And  whereas  some  men  have  pretend- 
ed for  their  disobedience  to  their  sovereign,  a  new  covenant,  made 
not  with  men,  but  with  God,  this  also  is  unjust:  for  there  is  no 
covenant  with  God  but  by  mediation  of  somebody  that  represent- 
eth  God's  person;  which  none  doth  but  God's  lieutenant,  who  hath 

1  Part  II,  ch.  xviii. 


HOBBES  321 

the  sovereignty  under  God.  But  this  pretence  of  covenant  with 
God  is  so  evident  a  lie,  even  in  the  pretenders*  own  consciences, 
that  it  is  not  only  an  act  of  an  unjust,  but  also  of  a  vile  and  unmanly 
disposition. 

Secondly,  because  the  right  of  bearing  the  person  of  them  all  is 
given  to  him  they  make  sovereign,  by  covenant  only  of  one  to  an- 
other, and  not  of  him  to  any  of  them,  there  can  happen  no  breach  of 
covenant  jon  the  jJarJLof  the  sovereign!  ancLconsequently  none  of 
his  subiects^-by  any  pretence  of  forfeitun^can  be  freed  fronTIus 
subjection.  That  he  which  is  made  sovereign  maketh  no  covenant 
with  his  subjects  beforehand,  is  manifest;  because  either  he  must 
make  it  with  the  whole  multitude,  as  one  party  to  the  covenant, 
or  he  must  make  a  several  covenant  with  every  man.  With  the 
whole,  as  one  party,  it  is  impossible;  because  as  yet  they  are  not 
one  person;  and  if  he  make  so  many  several  covenants  as  there  be 
men,  those  covenants  after  he  hath  the  sovereignty  are  void; 
because  what  act  soever  can  be  pretended  by  any  one  of  them  for 
breach  thereof,  is  the  act  both  of  himself  and  of  all  the  rest,  because 
done  in  the  person  and  by  the  right  of  every  one  of  them  in  par- 
ticular. Besides,  if  any  one  or  more  of  them  pretend  a  breach  of 
the  covenant  made  by  the  sovereign  at  his  institution;  and  others, 
or  one  other  of  his  subjects,  or  himself  alone,  pretend  there  was 
no  such  breach,  there  is  in  this  case  no  judge  to  decide  the  con- 
troversy; it  returns  therefore  to  the  sword  again,  and  every  man 
recovereth  the  right  of  protecting  himself  by  his  own  strength, 
contrary  to  the  design  they  had  in  the  institution.  It  is_yiejrefojn£_ 
in  vain  to  grant  sovereignty  by  way  of  precedent  covenant.  The 
opinion  that  any  monarch  receiveth  his  power  by  covenant,  that 
is  to  say,  on  condition,  proceedeth  from  want  of  understanding 
this  easy  truth,  that  covenants  being  but  words  and  breath,  have 
no  force  to  oblige,  contain,  constrain,  or  protect  any  man,  but  what 
they  have  from  the  public  sword;  that  is,  from  the  united  hands  of 
that  man  or  assembly  of  men  that  hath  the  sovereignty,  and  whose 
actions  are  avouched  by  them  all,  and  performed  by  the  strength 
of  them  all,  in  him  united.  But  when  an  assembly  of  men  is 
made  sovereign,  then  no  man  imagineth  any  such  covenant  to 
have  passed  in  the  institution;  for  no  man  is  so  dull  as  to  say,  for 
example,  the  people  of  Rome  made  a  covenant  with  the  Romans 
to  hold  the  sovereignty  on  such  or  such  conditions;  which  not 
performed,  the  Romans  might  lawfully  depose  the  Roman  people. 
That  men  see  not  the  reason  to  be  alike  in  a  monarchy  and  in  a 
popular  government,  proceedeth  from  the  ambition  of  some  that 
are  kinder  to  the  government  of  an  assembly,  whereof  they  may 


322  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

hope  to  participate,  than  of  monarchy,  which  they  despair  to 
enjoy. 

Thirdly,  because  the  major  part  hath  by  consenting  voices 
declared  a  sovereign,  he  that  dissented  must  now  consent  with  the 
rest,  that  is,  be  contented  to  avow  all  the  actions  he  shall  do,  or 
else  justly  be  destroyed  by  the  rest.  For  if  he  voluntarily  entered 
into  the  congregation  of  them  that  were  assembled,  he  sufficiently 
declared  thereby  his  will,  and  therefore  tacitly  covenanted  to 
stand  to  what  the  major  part  should  ordain?jand  therefore  if  he 
refuse  to  stand  thereto,  or  make  protestation  against  any  of  their 
decrees,  he  does  contrary  to  his  covenant,  and  therefore  unjustly. 
And  whether  he  be  of  the  congregation  or  not,  and  whether  his  con- 
sent be  asked  or  not,  he  must  either  submit  to  their  degrees,  or  be 
left  in  the  condition  of  war  he  was  in  before;  wherein  he  might  with- 
out injustice  be  destroyed  by  any  man  whatsoever. 
(^Fourthly,  because  every  subject  is  by  this  institution  author  of 
all  the  actions  and  judgments  of  the  sovereign  instituted,  it  follows 
that  whatsoever  he  doth  it  can  be  no  injury  to  any  of  his  subjects, 
nor  ought  he  to  be  by  any  of  them  accused  of  injusticeTA  For  he 
that  doth  anything  by  authority  from  another  doth  tEerein  no 
injury  to  him  by  whose  authority  he  acteth:  but  by  this  institution 
of  a  commonwealth  every  particular  man  is  author  of  all  the 
sovereign  doth;  and  consequently,  he  that  complaineth  of  injury 
from  his  sovereign  complaineth  of  that  whereof  he  himself  is 
author,  and  therefore  ought  not  to  accuse  any  man  but  himself; 
no,  nor  himself  of  injury,  because  to  do  injury  to  one's  self  is 
impossible,  rlt  is  true  that  they  that  have  sovereign  power  may 
commit  iniquity,  but  not  injustice  or  injury  in  the  proper  signifi- 
cation ._" 

Fifthly,  and  consequently  to  that  which  was  said  last,  no  man 
that  hath  sovereign  power  can  justly  be  put  to  death,  or  otherwise 
in  any  manner  by  his  subjects  punished.  For  seeing  every  subject 
is  author  of  the  actions  of  his  sovereign,  he  punisheth  another  for 
the  actions  committed  by  himself. 

And  because  the  end  of  this  institution  is  the  peace  and  defence 
of  them  all,  and  whosoever  has  right  to  the  end  has  right  to  the 
means,jit  belongeth  of  right  to  whatsoever  man  or  assembly  that 
hath  the  sovereignty  to  be  judge  both  of  the  means  of  peace  and 
defence,  and  also  of  the  hindrances  and  disturbances  of  the  same, 
and  to  do  whatsoever  he  shall  think  necessary  to  be  done,  both 
beforehand,  for  the  preserving  of  peace  and  security,  by  prevention 
of  discord  at  home  and  hostility  from  abroad;  and,  when  peace  and 
security  are  lost,  for  the  recovery  of  the  same.)  And  therefore, 


HOBBES  323 

Sixthly,  it  is  annexed  to  the  sovereignty  to  be  judge  of  what 
opinions  and  doctrines  are  averse  and  what  conducing  to  peace; 
and  consequently,  on  what  occasions,  how  far,  and  what  men  are 
to  be  trusted  withal,  in  speaking  to  multitudes  of  people,  and  who 
shall  examine  the  doctrines  of  all  books  before  they  be  published. 
For  the  actions  of  men  proceed  from  their  opinions,  and  in  the  well 
governing  of  opinions  consisteth  the  well  governing  of  men's 
actions,  in  order  to  their  peace  and  concord.  And  though  in  mat- 
ter of  doctrine  nothing  ought  to  be  regarded  but  the  truth;  yet 
this  is  not  repugnant  to  regulating  the  same  by  peace.  For  doctrine 
repugnant  to  peace  can  be  no  more  true  than  peace  and  concord  can 
be  against  the  law  of  nature.  It  is  true  that  in  a  commonwealth, 
where,  by  the  negligence  or  unskilfulness  of  governors  and  teachers, 
false  doctrines  are  by  time  generally  received,  the  contrary  truths 
may  be  generally  offensive.  Yet  the  most  sudden  and  rough 
bursting  in  of  a  new  truth  that  can  be,  does  never  break  the  peace, 
but  only  sometimes  awake  the  war.  For  those  men  that  are  so 
remissly  governed,  that  they  dare  take  up  arms  to  defend  or  in- 
troduce an  opinion,  are  still  in  war;  and  their  condition  not  peace, 
but  only  a  cessation  of  arms  for  fear  of  one  another;  and  they  live, 
as  it  were,  in  the  precincts  of  battle  continually.  It  belongeth 
therefore  to  him  that  hath  the  sovereign  power  to  be  judge,  or 
constitute  all  judges,  of  opinions  and  doctrines,  as  a  thing  necessary 
to  peace,  thereby  to  prevent  discord  and  civil  war. 

^Seventhly,  is  annexed  to  the  sovereignty,  the  whole  power  of 
prescribing  the  rules  whereby  every  man  may  know  what  goods 
he  may  enjoy  and  what  actions  he  may  do,  without  being  molested 
by  any  of  his  fellow-subjects;  and  this  is  it  men  call  "propriety. "3 
For  before  constitution  of  sovereign  power,  as  hath  already  been 
shown,  all  men  had  right  to  all  things,  which  necessarily  causeth 
war:  and  therefore  this  propriety,  being  necessary  to  peace,  and 
depending  on  sovereign  power,  is  the  act  of  that  power,  in  order 
to  the  public  peace.  These  rules  of  propriety,  or  meum  and  tuum, 
and  of  good,  evil,  lawful,  and  unlawful  in  the  actions  of  sub- 
jects, are  the  civil  laws;  that  is  to  say,  the  laws  of  each  com- 
monwealth in  particular;  though  the  name  of  civil  law  be  now 
restrained  to  the  ancient  civil  laws  of  the  city  of  Rome,  which 
being  the  head  of  a  great  part  of  the  world,  her  laws  at  that  time 
were  in  these  parts  the  civil  law. 

Eighthly,  is  annexed  to  the  sovereignty,  the  right  of  judicature, 
that  is  to  say,  of  hearing  and  deciding  all  controversies  which 
may  arise  concerning  law,  either  civil  or  natural,  or  concerning 
fact.  For  without  the  decision  of  controversies,  there  is  no  pro- 


324  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

tection  of  one  subject  against  the  injuries  of  another;  the  laws 
concerning  meum  and  tuum  are  in  vain,  and  to  every  man  re- 
maineth,  from  the  natural  and  necessary  appetite  of  his  own  con- 
servation, the  right  of  protecting  himself  by  his  private  strength, 
which  is  the  condition  of  war,  and  contrary  to  the  end  for  which 
every  commonwealth  is  instituted. 

Ninthly,  is  annexed  to  the  sovereignty,  the  right  of  making  war 
and  peace  with  other  nations  and  commonwealths,  that  is  to  say, 
of  judging  when  it  is  for  the  public  good,  and  how  great  forces  are 
to  be  assembled,  armed,  and  paid  for  that  end,  and  to  levy  money 
upon  the  subjects  to  defray  the  expenses  thereof.  For  the  power 
by  which  the  people  are  to  be  defended  consisteth  in  their  armies, 
and  the  strength  of  an  army,  in  the  union  of  their  strength  under 
one  command,  which  command  the  sovereign  instituted,  therefore 
hath;  because  the  command  of  the  " militia,"  without  other 
institution,  maketh  him  that  hath  it  sovereign.  And  therefore 
whosoever  is  made  general  of  an  army,  he  that  hath  the  sovereign 
power  is  always  generalissimo. 

Tenthly,  is  annexed  to  the  sovereignty,  the  choosing  of  all  coun- 
sellors, ministers,  magistrates,  and  officers,  both  in  peace  and  war. 
For  seeing  the  sovereign  is  charged  with  the  end,  which  is  the  com- 
mon peace  and  defence,  he  is  understood  to  have  power  to  use 
such  means  as  he  shall  think  most  fit  for  his  discharge. 

Eleventhly,  to  the  sovereign  is  committed  the  power  of  reward- 
ing with  riches  or  honor,  and  of  punishing  with  corporal  or 
pecuniary  punishment,  or  with  ignominy,  every  subject  according 
to  the  law  he  hath  formerly  made;  or  if  there  be  no  law  made, 
according  as  he  shall  judge  most  to  conduce  to  the  encouraging 
of  men  to  serve  the  commonwealth,  or  deterring  of  them  from  doing 
disservice  to  the  same. 

Lastly,  considering  what  value  men  are  naturally  apt  to  set 
upon  themselves,  what  respect  they  look  for  from  others,  and  how 
little  they  value  other  men,  from  whence  continually  arise  amongst 
them,  emulation,  quarrels,  factions,  and  at  last  war,  to  the  destroy- 
ing of  one  another,  and  diminution  of  their  strength  against  a 
common  enemy,  it  is  necessary  that  there  be  laws  of  honor,  and 
a  public  rate  of  the  worth  of  such  men  as  have  deserved  or  are 
able  to  deserve  well  of  the  commonwealth;  and  that  there  be 
force  in  the  hands  of  some  or  other,  to  put  those  laws  in  execution. 
But  it  hath  already  been  shown  that  not  only  the  whole  "  militia, " 
or  forces  of  the  commonwealth,  but  also  the  judicature  of  all  con- 
troversies, is  annexed  to  the  sovereignty.  To  the  sovereign  there- 
fore it  belongeth  also  to  give  titles  of  honor;  and  to  appoint  what 


HOBBES  325 

order  of  place  and  dignity  each  man  shall  hold;  and  what  signs 
of  respect,  in  public  or  private  meetings,  they  shall  give  to  one 
another. 

These  are  the  rights  which  make  the  essence  of  sovereignty, 
and  which  are  the  marks  whereby  a  man  may  discern  in  what  man, 
or  assembly  of  men,  the  sovereign  power  is  placed  and  resideth. 
For  these  are  incommunicable,  and  inseparable.  The  power  to 
coin  money,  to  dispose  of  the  estate  and  persons  of  infant  heirs, 
to  have  preemption  in  markets,  and  all  other  statute  prerogatives, 
may  be  transferred  by  the  sovereign,  and  yet  the  power  to  protect 
his  subjects  be  retained.  But  if  he  transfer  the  "militia,"  he 
retains  the  judicature  in  vain,  for  want  of  execution  of  the  laws: 
of  if  he  grant  away  the  power  of  raising  money,  the  "militia" 
is  in  vain;  or  if  he  give  away  the  government  of  doctrines,  men  will 
be  frighted  into  rebellion  with  the  fear  of  spirits.  And  so  if  we 
consider  any  one  of  the  said  rights,  we  shall  presently  see  that  the 
holding  of  all  the  rest  will  produce  no  effect  in  the  conservation 
of  peace  and  justice,  the  end  for  which  all  commonwealths  are 
instituted.  And  this  division  is  it  whereof  it  is  said,  "a  kingdom 
divided  in  itself  cannot  stand:"  for  unless  this  division  precede, 
division  into  opposite  armies  can  never  happen.  If  there  had  not 
first  been  an  opinion  received  of  the  greatest  part  of  England 
that  these  powers  were  divided  between  the  King,  and  the  Lords, 
and  the  House  of  Commons,  the  people  had  never  been  divided  and 
fallen  into  this  civil  war,  first  between  those  that  disagreed  in 
politics,  and  after  between  the  dissenters  about  the  liberty  of 
religion;  which  have  so  instructed  men  in  this  point  of  sovereign 
right,  that  there  be  few  now  in  England  that  do  not  see  that 
these  rights  are  inseparable,  and  will  be  so  generally  acknowl- 
edged at  the  next  return  of  peace,  and  so  continue,  till  their 
miseries  are  forgotten;  and  no  longer,  except  the  vulgar  be  better 
taught  than  they  have  hitherto  been. 

And  because  they  are  essential  and  inseparable  rights,  it  follows 
necessarily  that  in  whatsoever  words  any  of  them  seem  to  be 
granted  away,  yet  if  the  sovereign  power  itself  be  not  in  direct 
terms  renounced,  and  the  name  of  sovereign  no  more  given  by 
the  grantees  to  him  that  grants  them,  the  grant  is  void:  for  when 
he  has  granted  all  he  can,  if  we  grant  back  the  sovereignty,  all 
is  restored,  as  inseparably  annexed  thereunto. 

This  great  authority  being  indivisible  and  inseparably  annexed 
to  the  sovereignty,  there  is  little  ground  for  the  opinion  of  them 
that  say  of  sovereign  kings,  though  they  be  singulis  majores,  of 
greater  power  than  every  one  of  their  subjects,  yet  they  be  universis 


\ 


326  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

minores,  of  less  power  than  them  all  together.  For  if  by  "all 
together"  they  mean  not  the  collective  body  as  one  person,  then 
"all  together"  and  "every  one"  signify  the  same;  and  the  speech 
is  absurd.  But  if  by  "all  together,"  they  understand  them  as 
one  person,  which  person  the  sovereign  bears,  then  the  power  of 
all  together  is  the  same  with  the  sovereign's  power;  and  so  again 
the  speech  is  absurd:  which  absurdity  they  see  well  enough,  when 
the  sovereignty  is  in  an  assembly  of  the  people;  but  in  a  monarch 
they  see  it  not;  and  yet  the  power  of  sovereignty  is  the  same  in 
whomsoever  it  be  placed. 

And  as  the  power,  so  also  the  honor  of  the  sovereign,  ought 
to  be  greater  than  that  of  any  or  all  the  subjects.  For  in  the 
sovereignty  is  the  fountain  of  honor.  The  dignities  of  lord,  earl, 
duke,  and  prince  are  his  creatures.  As  in  the  presence  of  the  mas- 
ter the  servants  are  equal,  and  without  any  honor  at  all;  so  are 
the  subjects  in  the  presence  of  the  sovereign.  And  though  they 
shine  some  more,  some  less,  when  they  are  out  of  his  sight;  yet 
in  his  presence,  they  shine  no  more  than  the  stars  in  the  presence 
of  the  sun. 

But  a  man  may  here  object  that  the  condition  of  subjects  is 
very  miserable ;  as  being  obnoxious  to  the  lusts,  and  other  irregular 
passions  of  him  or  them  that  have  so  unlimited  a  power  in  their 
hands.  And  commonly  they  that  live  under  a  monarch,  think  it 
the  fault  of  monarchy;  and  they  that  live  under  the  government  of 
democracy,  or  other  sovereign  assembly,  attribute  all  the  incon- 
venience to  that  form  of  commonwealth;  whereas  the  power  in 
all  forms,  if  they  be  perfect  enough  to  protect  them,  is  the  same: 
not  considering  that  the  state  of  man  can  never  be  without  some 
incommodity  or  other;  and  that  the  greatest,  that  in  any  form  of 
government  can  possibly  happen  to  the  people  in  general,  is  scarce 
sensible,  in  respect  of  the  miseries  and  horrible  calamities  that  ac- 
company a  civil  war,  or  that  dissolute  condition  of  masterless  men, 
without  subjection  to  laws  and  a  coercive  power  to  tie  their  hands 
from  rapine  and  revenge:  nor  considering  that  the  greatest  pressure 
of  sovereign  governors  proceedeth  not  from  any  delight  or  profit 
they  can  expect  in  the  damage  or  weakening  of  their  subjects,  in 
whose  vigor  consisteth  their  own  strength  and  glory;  but  in  the 
restiveness  of  themselves,  that  unwillingly  contributing  to  their 
own  defence,  make  it  necessary  for  their  governors  to  draw  from 
them  what  they  can  in  time  of  peace,  that  they  may  have  means  on 
any  emergent  occasion,  or  sudden  need,  to  resist,  or  take  advantage 
on  their  enemies.  For  all  men  are  by  nature  provided  of  notable 
multiplying  glasses,  that  is  their  passions  and  self-love,  through 


HOBBES  327 

which  every  little  payment  appeareth  a  great  grievance;  but  are 
destitute  of  those  prospective  glasses,  namely,  moral  and  civil 
science,  to  see  afar  off  the  miseries  that  hang  over  them,  and  cannot 
without  such  payments  be  avoided. 

4.     The  Kinds  of  State  l 

Ch.  xix.  Of  the  Several  Kinds  of  Commonwealth  by  Institution, 
and  of  Succession  to  the  Sovereign  Power. 

The  difference  of  commonwealths  consisteth  in  the  difference 
of  the  sovereign,  or  the  person  representative  of  all  and  every  one 
of  the  multitude.  And  because  the  sovereignty  is  either  in  one 
man,  or  in  an  assembly  of  more  than  one,  and  into  that  assembly 
either  every  man  hath  right  to  enter,  or  not  every  one  but  certain 
men  distinguished  from  the  rest,  it  is  manifest  there  can  be  but 
three  kinds  of  commonwealth.  For  the  representative  must  needs 
be  one  man,  or  more:  and  if  more,  then  it  is  the  assembly  of  all, 
or  but  of  a  part.  When  the  representative  is  one  man,  then  is  the 
commonwealth  a  monarchy:  when  an  assembly  of  all  that  will 
come  together,  then  it  is  a  democracy,  or  popular  common- 
wealth :  when  an  assembly  of  a  part  only,  then  it  is  called  an  aris- 
tocracy. Other  kind  of  commonwealth  there  can  be  none:  for 
either  one  or  more,  or  all,  must  have  the  sovereign  power,  which  I 
have  shown  to  be  indivisible,  entire. 

There  be  other  names  of  government  in  the  histories  and  books 
of  policy,  as  tyranny,  and  oligarchy:  but  they  are  not  the 
names  of  other  forms  of  government,  but  of  the  same  forms  mis- 
liked.  For  they  that  are  discontented  under  monarchy  call 
it  tyranny;  and  they  that  are  displeased  with  aristocracy  call  it 
oligarchy:  so  also  they  which  find  themselves  grieved  under 
a  democracy,  call  it  anarchy,  which  signifies  want  of  govern- 
ment; and  yet  I  think  no  man  believes  that  want  of  government 
is  any  new  kind  of  government ;  nor  by  the  same  reason  ought  they 
to  believe  that  the  government  is  of  one  kind  when  they  like  it,  and 
another  when  they  dislike  it,  or  are  oppressed  by  the  governors. 

It  is  manifest  that  men  who  are  in  absolute  liberty  may,  if 
they  please,  give  authority  to  one  man  to  represent  them  every  one; 
as  well  as  give  such  authority  to  any  assembly  of  men  whatsoever; 
and  consequently  may  subject  themselves,  if  they  think  good,  to 
a  monarch  as  absolutely  as  to  any  other  representative.  There- 
fore, where  there  is  already  erected  a  sovereign  power,  there  can 
be  no  other  representative  of  the  same  people,  but  only  to  certain 

1  Part  II,  ch.  xix  (in  part). 


328  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

particular  ends,  by  the  sovereign  limited.  For  that  were  to  erect 
two  sovereigns;  and  every  man  to  have  his  person  represented  by 
two  actors,  that  by  opposing  one  another,  must  needs  divide  that 
power,  which,  if  men  will  live  in  peace,  is  indivisible,  and  thereby 
reduce  the  multitude  into  the  condition  of  war,  contrary  to  the 
end  for  which  all  sovereignty  is  instituted.  And  therefore  as  it 
is  absurd  to  think  that  a  sovereign  assembly,  inviting  the  people 
of  their  dominion  to  send  up  their  deputies,  with  power  to  make 
known  their  advice,  or  desires,  should  therefore  hold  such  deputies 
rather  than  themselves  for  the  absolute  representatives  of  the 
people,  so  it  is  absurd  also  to  think  the  same  in  a  monarchy.  And 
I  know  not  how  this  so  manifest  a  truth  should  of  late  be  so  little 
observed,  that  in  a  monarchy,  he  that  had  the  sovereignty  from 
a  descent  of  six  hundred  years,  was  alone  called  sovereign,  had 
the  title  of  Majesty  from  every  one  of  his  subjects,  and  was  unques- 
tionably taken  by  them  for  their  king,  was  notwithstanding  never 
considered  as  their  representative;  the  name  without  contradiction 
passing  for  the  title  of  those  men  which  at  his  command  were 
sent  up  by  the  people  to  carry  their  petitions,  and  give  him,  if  he 
permitted  it,  their  advice.  Which  may  serve  as  an  admonition 
for  those  that  are  the  true  and  absolute  representative  of  a  people, 
to  instruct  men  in  the  nature  of  that  office,  and  to  take  heed  how 
they  admit  of  any  other  general  representation  upon  any  occasion 
whatsoever,  if  they  mean  to  discharge  the  trust  committed  to 
them. 

The  difference  between  these  three  kinds  of  commonwealth 
consisteth  not  in  the  difference  of  power;  but  in  the  difference  of 
convenience,  or  aptitude  to  produce  the  peace  and  security  of  the 
people;  for  which  end  they  were  instituted.  And  to  compare 
monarchy  with  the  other  two,  we  may  observe,  first,  that  who- 
soever beareth  the  person  of  the  people,  or  is  one  of  that  assembly 
that  bears  it,  beareth  also  his  own  natural  person.  And  though  he 
be  careful  in  his  politic  person  to  procure  the  common  interest; 
yet  he  is  more  or  no  less  careful  to  procure  the  private  good  of 
himself,  his  family,  kindred,  and  friends,  and  for  the  most  part, 
if  the  public  interest  chance  to  cross  the  private,  he  prefers  the 
private:  for  the  passions  of  men  are  commonly  more  potent  than 
their  reason.  From  whence  it  follows  that  where  the  public 
and  private  interest  are  most  closely  united,  there  is  the  public 
most  advanced.  Now  in  monarchy,  the  private  interest  is  the 
same  with  the  public.  The  riches,  power,  and  honor  of  a  mon- 
arch arise  only  from  the  riches,  strength,  and  reputation  of  his 
subjects.  For  no  king  can  be  rich,  nor  glorious,  nor  secure,  whose 


HOBBES  329 

subjects  are  either  poor,  or  contemptible,  or  too  weak  through 
want  or  dissension,  to  maintain  a  war  against  their  enemies: 
whereas  in  a  democracy,  or  aristocracy,  the  public  prosperity  con- 
fers not  so  much  to  the  private  fortune  of  one  that  is  corrupt,  or 
ambitious,  as  doth  many  times  a  perfidious  advice,  a  treacherous 
action,  or  a  civil  war. 

Secondly,  that  a  monarch  receiveth  counsel  of  whom,  when, 
and  where  he  pleaseth ;  and  consequently  may  hear  the  opinion  of 
men  versed  in  the  matter  about  which  he  deliberates,  of  what  rank 
or  quality  soever,  and  as  long  before  the  time  of  action,  and  with 
as  much  secrecy,  as  he  will.  But  when  a  sovereign  assembly  has 
need  of  counsel,  none  are  admitted  but  such  as  have  a  right  thereto 
from  the  beginning :  which  for  the  most  part  are  of  those  who  have 
been  versed  more  in  the  acquisition  of  wealth  than  of  knowledge; 
and  are  to  give  their  advice  in  long  discourses,  which  may  and  do 
commonly  excite  men  to  action,  but  not  govern  them  in  it.  For 
the  understanding  is  by  the  flame  of  the  passions  never  enlight- 
ened, but  dazzled.  Nor  is  there  any  place,  or  time,  wherein  an 
assembly  can  receive  counsel  with  secrecy,  because  of  their  own 
multitude. 

Thirdly,  that  the  resolutions  of  a  monarch  are  subject  to  no 
other  inconstancy  than  that  of  human  nature;  but  in  assemblies, 
besides  that  of  nature,  there  ariseth  an  inconstancy  from  the 
number.  For  the  absence  of  a  few,  that  would  have  the  resolution 
once  taken,  continue  firm,  which  may  happen  by  security,  negli- 
gence, or  private  impediments,  or  the  diligent  appearance  of  a 
few  of  the  contrary  opinion,  undoes  to-day  all  that  was  concluded 
yesterday. 

Fourthly,  that  a  monarch  cannot  disagree  with  himself,  out 
of  envy  or  interest;  but  an  assembly  may;  and  that  to  such  a  height 
as  may  produce  a  civil  war. 

Fifthly,  that  in  monarchy  there  is  this  inconvenience:  that  any 
subject,  by  the  power  of  one  man,  for  the  enriching  of  a  favorite 
or  flatterer,  may  be  deprived  of  all  he  possesseth;  which  I  confess 
is  a  great  and  inevitable  inconvenience.  But  the  same  may  as 
well  happen  where  the  sovereign  power  is  an  assembly:  for  their 
power  is  the  same;  and  they  are  as  subject  to  evil  counsel,  and  to  be 
seduced  by  orators,  as  a  monarch  by  flatterers;  and  becoming  one 
another's  flatterers,  serve  one  another's  covetousness  and  ambition 
by  turns.  And  whereas  the  favorites  of  monarchs  are  few,  and 
they  have  none  else  to  advance  but  their  own  kindred,  the  favor- 
ites of  an  assembly  are  many;  and  the  kindred  much  more  numer- 
ous than  of  any  monarch.  Besides  there  is  no  favorite  of  a 


330  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

monarch,  which  cannot  as  well  succor  his  friends  as  hurt  his 
enemies;  but  orators,  that  is  to  say,  favorites  of  sovereign  assem- 
blies, though  they  have  great  power  to  hurt,  have  little  to  save. 
For  to  accuse  requires  less  eloquence,  such  is  man's  nature,  than 
to  excuse;  and  condemnation,  than  absolution  more  resembles 
justice. 

Sixthly,  that  it  is  an  inconvenience  in  monarchy  that  the 
sovereignty  may  descend  upon  an  infant,  or  one  that  cannot  dis- 
cern between  good  and  evil:  and  consisteth  in  this,  that  the  use 
of  his  power  must  be  in  the  hand  of  another  man,  or  of  some 
assembly  of  men,  which  are  to  govern  by  his  right  and  in  his  name; 
as  curators  and  protectors  of  his  person  and  authority.  But  to 
say  there  is  inconvenience  in  putting  the  use  of  the  sovereign 
power  into  the  hand  of  a  man,  or  an  assembly  of  men,  is  to  say 
that  all  government  is  more  inconvenient  than  confusion  and  civil 
war.  And  therefore  all  the  danger  that  can  be  pretended  must 
arise  from  the  contention  of  those  that  for  an  office  of  so  great 
honor  and  profit  may  become  competitors.  To  make  it  appear 
that  this  inconvenience  proceedeth  not  from  that  form  of  govern- 
ment we  call  monarchy,  we  are  to  consider  that  the  precedent 
monarch  hath  appointed  who  shall  have  the  tuition  of  his  infant 
successor,  either  expressly  by  testament,  or  tacitly,  by  not  control- 
ling the  custom  in  that  case  received:  and  then  such  inconvenience, 
if  it  happen,  is  to  be  attributed,  not  to  the  monarchy,  but  to  the 
ambition  and  injustice  of  the  subjects;  which  in  all  kinds  of  govern- 
ment where  the  people  are  not  well  instructed  in  their  duty  and 
the  rights  of  sovereignty,  is  the  same.  Or  else  the  precedent  mon- 
arch hath  not  at  all  taken  order  for  such  tuition;  and  then  the  law 
of  nature  hath  provided  this  sufficient  rule,  that  the  tuition  shall 
be  in  him  that  hath,  by  nature,  most  interest  in  the  preservation 
of  the  authority  of  the  infant,  and  to  whom  least  benefit  can  accrue 
by  his  death  or  diminution.  For  seeing  every  man  by  nature 
seeketh  his  own  benefit  and  promotion,  to  put  an  infant  into  the 
power  of  those  that  can  promote  themselves  by  his  destruction, 
or  damage,  is  not  tuition,  but  treachery.  So  that  sufficient  pro- 
vision being  taken  against  all  just  quarrel  about  the  government 
under  a  child,  if  any  contention  arise  to  the  disturbance  of  the 
public  peace,  it  is  not  to  be  attributed  to  the  form  of  monarchy, 
but  to  the  ambition  of  subjects,  and  ignorance  of  their  duty.  On 
the  other  side,  there  is  no  great  commonwealth,  the  sovereignty 
whereof  is  in  a  great  assembly,  which  is  not,  as  to  consultations 
of  peace  and  war,  and  making  of  laws,  in  the  same  condition  as  if 
the  government  were  in  a  child.  For  as  a  child  wants  the  judg- 


HOBBES  331 

ment  to  dissent  from  counsel  given  him,  and  is  thereby  necessitated 
to  take  the  advice  of  them,  or  him,  to  whom  he  is  committed,  so 
an  assembly  wanteth  the  liberty  to  dissent  from  the  counsel  of 
the  major  part,  be  it  good  or  bad.  And  as  a  child  has  need  of  a 
tutor,  or  protector,  to  preserve  his  person  and  authority,  so  also, 
in  great  commonwealths,  the  sovereign  assembly,  in  all  great 
dangers  and  troubles,  have  need  of  custodes  libertatis,  that  is  of 
dictators,  or  protectors  of  their  authority;  which  are  as  much 
as  temporary  monarchs,  to  whom  for  a  time  they  may  commit  the 
entire  exercise  of  their  power;  and  have,  at  the  end  of  that  time, 
been  oftener  deprived  thereof  than  infant  kings,  by  their  pro- 
tectors, regents,  or  any  other  tutors. 

5.     Liberty l 

Ch.  xxi.     Of  the  Liberty  of  Subjects. 

Liberty,  or  freedom,  signifieth,  properly,  the  absence  of  op- 
position; by  opposition,  I  mean  external  impediments  of  motion; 
and  may  be  applied  no  less  to  irrational  and  inanimate  creatures 
than  to  rational.  For  whatsoever  is  so  tied,  or  environed,  as  it 
cannot  move  but  within  a  certain  space,  which  space  is  determined 
by  the  opposition  of  some  external  body,  we  say  it  hath  not  liberty 
to  go  further.  And  so  of  all  living  creatures  whilst  they  are  im- 
prisoned, or  restrained,  with  walls  or  chains;  and  of  the  water 
whilst  it  is  kept  in  by  banks  or  vessels,  that  otherwise  would 
spread  itself  into  a  larger  space,  we  use  to  say,  they  are  not  at 
liberty  to  move  in  such  manner  as  without  those  external  impedi- 
ments they  would.  But  when  the  impediment  of  motion  is  in 
the  constitution  of  the  thing  itself,  we  use  not  to  say,  it  wants 
the  liberty,  but  the  power  to  move;  as  when  a  stone  lieth  still,  or 
a  man  is  fastened  to  his  bed  by  sickness. 

And  according  to  this  proper  and  generally  received  meaning  of 
the  word,  a  freeman  is  he,  that  in  those  things,  which  by  his 
strength  and  wit  he  is  able  to  do,  is  not  hindered  to  do  what  he 
has  a  will  to.  But  when  the  words  "free,"  and  "liberty,"  are 
applied  to  anything  but  bodies,  they  are  abused;  for  that  which 
is  not  subject  to  motion,  is  not  subject  to  impediment;  and  there- 
fore, when  it  is  said  for  example,  the  way  is  free,  no  liberty  of  the 
way  is  signified,  but  of  those  that  walk  in  it  without  stop.  And 
when  we  say  a  gift  is  free,  there  is  not  meant  any  liberty  of  the 
gift,  but  of  the  giver,  that  was  not  bound  by  any  law  or  covenant 
to  give  it.  So  when  we  speak  freely,  it  is  not  the  liberty  of 
II,  ch.  xxi. 


332  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

voice,  or  pronunciation,  but  of  the  man,  whom  no  law  hath  obliged 
to  speak  otherwise  than  he  did.  Lastly,  from  the  use  of  the  word 
"free-will,"  no  liberty  can  be  inferred  of  the  will,  desire,  or  in- 
clination, but  the  liberty  of  the  man;  which  consisteth  in  this,  that 
he  finds  no  stop  in  doing  what  he  has  the  will,  desire,  or  inclina- 
tion to  do. 

Fear  and  liberty  are  consistent;  as  when  a  man  throweth  his 
goods  into  the  sea  for  fear  the  ship  should  sink,  he  doth  it  never- 
theless very  willingly,  and  may  refuse  to  do  it  if  he  will :  it  is  there- 
fore the  action  of  one  that  was  free;  so  a  man  sometimes  pays 
his  debt,  only  for  fear  of  imprisonment,  which  because  nobody 
hindered  him  from  detaining,  was  the  action  of  a  man  at  liberty. 
And  generally  all  actions  which  men  do  in  commonwealths,  for 
fear  of  the  law,  are  actions  which  the  doers  had  liberty  to  omit. 

Liberty  and  necessity  are  consistent,  as  in  the  water  that 
hath  not  only  liberty,  but  a  necessity  of  descending  by  the 
channel;  so  likewise  in  the  actions  which  men  voluntarily  do: 
which,  because  they  proceed  from  their  will,  proceed  from  liberty ; 
and  yet,  because  every  act  of  man's  will,  and  every  desire  and 
inclination  proceedeth  from  some  cause,  and  that  from  another 
cause,  in  a  continual  chain,  whose  first  link  is  in  the  hand  of  God 
the  first  of  all  causes,  proceed  from  necessity.  So  that  to  him 
that  could  see  the  connection  of  those  causes,  the  necessity 
of  all  men's  voluntary  actions  would  appear  manifest.  And 
therefore  God,  that  seeth  and  disposeth  all  things,  seeth  also  that 
the  liberty  of  man  in  doing  what  he  will,  is  accompanied  with 
the  necessity  of  doing  that  which  God  will,  and  no  more  nor 
less.  For  though  men  may  do  many  things  which  God  does  not 
command,  nor  is  therefore  author  of  them;  yet  they  can  have  no 
passion  nor  appetite  to  anything,  of  which  appetite  God's  will  is 
not  the  cause.  And  did  not  His  will  assure  the  necessity  of 
man's  will,  and  consequently  of  all  that  on  man's  will  dependeth, 
the  liberty  of  men  would  be  a  contradiction  and  impediment 
to  the  omnipotence  and  liberty  of  God.  And  this  shall  suffice, 
as  to  the  matter  in  hand,  of  that  natural  liberty,  which  only  is 
properly  called  liberty. 

But  as  men,  for  the  attaining  of  peace,  and  conservation  of  them- 
selves thereby,  have  made  an  artificial  man,  which  we  call  a  com- 
monwealth; so  also  have  they  made  artificial  chains,  called  "  civil 
laws,"  which  they  themselves,  by  mutual  covenants,  have  fastened 
at  one  end  to  the  lips  of  that  man,  or  assembly,  to  whom  they  have 
given  the  sovereign  power;  and  at  the  other  end  to  their  own  ears. 
These  bonds,  in  their  own  nature  but  weak,  may  nevertheless  be 


HOBBES  333 

made  to  hold,  by  the  danger,  though  not  by  the  difficulty  of  break- 
ing them. 

In  relation  to  these  bonds  only  it  is  that  I  am  to  speak  now  of 
the  liberty  of  subjects.  For  seeing  there  is  no  commonwealth 
in  the  world  wherein  there  be  rules  enough  set  down  for  the  regu- 
lating of  all  the  actions  and  words  of  men,  as  being  a  thing  im- 
possible; it  followeth  necessarily,  that  in  all  kinds  of  actions  by  the 
laws  pretermitted,  men  have  the  liberty  of  doing  what  their  own 
reasons  shall  suggest,  for  the  most  profitable  to  themselves.  For 
if  we  take  liberty  in  the  proper  sense  for  corporal  liberty,  that  is 
to  say,  freedom  from  chains  and  prison,  it  were  very  absurd  for 
men  to  clamor  as  they  do  for  the  liberty  they  so  manifestly 
enjoy.  Again,  if  we  take  liberty  for  an  exemption  from  laws,  it 
is  no  less  absurd  for  men  to  demand  as  they  do  that  liberty  by 
which  all  other  men  may  be  masters  of  their  lives.  And  yet,  as 
absurd  as  it  is,  this  is  it  they  demand;  not  knowing  that  the  laws 
are  of  no  power  to  protect  them,  without  a  sword  in  the  hands  of  a 
man,  or  men,  to  cause  those  laws  to  be  put  in  execution.  The 
liberty  of  a  subject  lieth  therefore  only  in  those  things  which  in 
regulating  their  actions,  the  sovereign  hath  pretermitted:  such 
as  is  the  liberty  to  buy  and  sell,  and  otherwise  contract  with  one 
another;  to  choose  their  own  abode,  their  own  diet,  their  own  trade 
of  life,  and  institute  their  children  as  they  themselves  think  fit; 
and  the  like. 

Nevertheless  we  are  not  to  understand  that  by  such  liberty 
the  sovereign  power  of  life  and  death  is  either  abolished  or  limited. 
For  it  has  been  already  shown  that  nothing  the  sovereign  repre- 
sentative can  do  to  a  subject,  on  what  pretence  soever,  can  properly 
be  called  injustice  or  injury;  because  every  subject  is  author  of 
every  act  the  sovereign  doth;  so  that  he  never  wanteth  right  to 
anything,  otherwise  than  as  he  himself  is  the  subject  of  God,  and 
bound  thereby  to  observe  the  laws  of  nature.  And  therefore  it 
may  and  doth  often  happen  in  commonwealths,  that  a  subject 
may  be  put  to  death  by  the  command  of  the  sovereign  power; 
and  yet  neither  do  the  other  wrong:  as  when  Jephtha  caused  his 
daughter  to  be  sacrificed;  in  which,  and  the  like  cases,  he  that  so 
dieth  had  liberty  to  do  the  action,  for  which  he  is  nevertheless 
without  injury  put  to  death.  And  the  same  holdeth  also  in  a 
sovereign  prince  that  putteth  to  death  an  innocent  subject. 
For  though  the  action  be  against  the  law  of  nature,  as  being  con- 
trary to  equity,  as  was  the  killing  of  Uriah,  by  David;  yet  it  was 
not  an  injury  to  Uriah,  but  to  God.  Not  to  Uriah,  because  the 
right  to  do  what  he  pleased  was  given  him  by  Uriah  himself:  and 


334  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

yet  to  God,  because  David  was  God's  subject,  and  prohibited  all 
iniquity  by  the  law  of  nature:  which  distinction,  David  himself, 
when  he  repented  the  fact,  evidently  confirmed,  saying,  "To  thee 
only  have  I  sinned. "  In  the  same  manner  the  people  of  Athens, 
when  they  banished  the  most  potent  of  their  commonwealth  for 
ten  years,  thought  they  committed  no  injustice;  and  yet  they  never 
questioned  what  crime  he  had  done,  but  what  hurt  he  would  do: 
nay  they  commanded  the  banishment  of  they  knew  not  whom; 
and  every  citizen  bringing  his  oyster-shell  into  the  market-place, 
written  with  the  name  of  him  he  desired  should  be  banished, 
without  actually  accusing  him,  sometimes  banished  an  Aristides, 
for  his  reputation  of  justice;  and  sometimes  a  scurrilous  jester,  as 
Hyperbolus,  to  make  a  jest  of  it.  And  yet  a  man  cannot  say,  the 
sovereign  people  of  Athens  wanted  right  to  banish  them;  or  an 
Athenian  the  liberty  to  jest  or  to  be  just. 

The  liberty  whereof  there  is  so  frequent  and  honorable  mention 
in  the  histories  and  philosophy  of  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans, 
and  in  the  writings  and  discourse  of  those  that  from  them  have 
received  all  their  learning  in  the  politics,  is  not  the  liberty  of  par- 
ticular men,  but  the  liberty  of  the  commonwealth:  which  is  the 
same  with  that  which  every  man  then  should  have,  if  there  were 
no  civil  laws,  nor  commonwealth  at  all.  And  the  effects  of  it 
also  be  the  same.  For  as  amongst  masterless  men  there  is  perpetual 
war,  of  every  man  against  his  neighbor;  no  inheritance  to  trans- 
mit to  the  son,  nor  to  expect  from  the  father;  no  propriety  of  goods 
or  lands;  no  security;  but  a  full  and  absolute  liberty  in  every  par- 
ticular man:  so  in  states  and  commonwealths  not  dependent  on 
one  another,  every  commonwealth,  not  every  man,  has  an  absolute 
liberty  to  do  what  it  shall  judge,  that  is  to  say,  what  that  man, 
or  assembly  that  representeth  it,  shall  judge  most  conducing  to 
their  benefit.  But  withal,  they  live  in  the  condition  of  a  perpetual 
war,  and  upon  the  confines  of  battle,  with  their  frontiers  armed, 
and  cannons  planted  against  their  neighbors  round  about.  The 
Athenians  and  Romans  were  free;  that  is,  free  commonwealths: 
not  that  any  particular  men  had  the  liberty  to  resist  their  own 
representative;  but  that  their  representative  had  the  liberty  to 
resist,  or  invade  other  people.  There  is  written  on  the  turrets  of 
the  city  of  Lucca,  in  great  characters,  at  this  day,  the  word  "Li- 
bertas;"  yet  no  man  can  thence  infer  that  a  particular  man  has 
more  liberty,  or  immunity  from  the  service  of  the  commonwealth 
there,  than  in  Constantinople.  Whether  a  commonwealth  be 
monarchical  or  popular,  the  freedom  is  still  the  same. 

But  it  is  an  easy  thing  for  men  to  be  deceived  by  the  specious 


HOBBES  335 

name  of  liberty;  and  for  want  of  judgment  to  distinguish,  mistake 
that  for  their  private  inheritance  and  birthright,  which  is  the  right 
of  the  public  only.  And  when  the  same  error  is  confirmed  by 
the  authority  of  men  in  reputation  for  their  writings  on  this 
subject,  it  is  no  wonder  if  it  produce  sedition,  and  change  of 
government.  In  these  western  parts  of  the  world,  we  are  made 
to  receive  our  opinions  concerning  the  institution  and  rights  of 
commonwealths,  from  Aristotle,  Cicero,  and  other  men,  Greeks 
and  Romans,  that  living  under  popular  states,  derived  those 
rights,  not  from  the  principles  of  nature,  but  transcribed  them 
into  their  books,  out  of  the  practice  of  their  own  commonwealths, 
which  were  popular;  as  the  grammarians  describe  the  rules  of  lan- 
guage out  of  the  practice  of  the  time;  or  the  rules  of  poetry  out  of 
the  poems  of  Homer  and  Virgil.  And  because  the  Athenians  were 
taught,  to  keep  them  from  desire  of  changing  their  government, 
that  they  were  free  men,  and  all  that  lived  under  monarchy 
were  slaves;  therefore  Aristotle  put  it  down  in  his  Politics 
(lib.  6,  cap.  ii.):  "In  democracy,  'liberty'  is  to  be  supposed:  for 
it  is  commonly  held,  that  no  man  is  'free*  in  any  other  govern- 
ment." And  as  Aristotle,  so  Cicero  and  other  writers  have 
grounded  their  civil  doctrine  on  the  opinions  of  the  Romans, 
who  were  taught  to  hate  monarchy,  at  first,  by  them  that  having 
deposed  their  sovereign,  shared  amongst  them  the  sovereignty  of 
Rome;  and  afterwards  by  their  successors.  And  by  reading  of 
these  Greek  and  Latin  authors,  men  from  their  childhood  have 
gotten  a  habit,  under  a  false  show  of  liberty,  of  favoring  tumults, 
and  of  licentious  controlling  the  actions  of  their  sovereigns,  and 
again  of  controlling  those  controllers;  with  the  effusion  of  so  much 
blood,  as  I  think  I  may  truly  say,  there  was  never  anything  so 
dearly  bought  as  these  western  parts  have  bought  the  learning 
of  the  Greek  and  Latin  tongues. 

To  come  now  to  the  particulars  of  the  true  liberty  of  a  subject; 
that  is  to  say,  what  are  the  things,  which  though  commanded 
by  the  sovereign,  he  may  nevertheless,  without  injustice,  refuse  to 
do;  we  are  to  consider  what  rights  we  pass  away  when  we  make  a 
commonwealth;  or,  which  is  all  one,  what  liberty  we  deny  ourselves, 
by  owning  all  the  actions,  without  exception,  of  the  man,  or  assem- 
bly, we  make  our  sovereign.  For  in  the  act  of  our  submission, 
consisteth  both  our  obligation  and  our  liberty;  which  must 
therefore  be  inferred  by  arguments  taken  from  thence;  there 
being  no  obligation  on  any  man,  which  ariseth  not  from  some  act 
of  his  own;  for  all  men  equally  are  by  nature  free.  And  because 
such  arguments  must  either  be  drawn  from  the  express  words, 


336  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

"I  authorize  all  his  actions,"  or  from  the  intention  of  him  that 
submitteth  himself  to  his  power,  which  intention  is  to  be  under- 
stood by  the  end  for  which  he  so  submitteth,  the  obligation  and 
liberty  of  the  subject  is  to  be  derived,  either  from  those  words 
or  others  equivalent,  or  else  from  the  end  of  the  institution  of 
sovereignty,  namely,  the  peace  of  the  subjects  within  themselves, 
and  their  defence  against  a  common  enemy. 

First  therefore,  seeing  sovereignty  by  institution  is  by  covenant 
of  every  one  to  every  one;  and  sovereignty  by  acquisition,  by 
covenants  of  the  vanquished  to  the  victor,  or  child  to  the  parent; 
it  is  manifest  that  every  subject  has  liberty  in  all  those  things 
the  right  whereof  cannot  by  covenant  be  transferred.  I  have 
shown  before  in  the  i4th  chapter,  that  covenants  not  to  defend 
a  man's  own  body  are  void.  Therefore, 

If  the  sovereign  cornma.nd  a.  rna.nf  though  justly  condemned, 
to  kill,  wound,  or  maim  himself:  or  not  to  resist  those  that  assault 
him;  or  to  abstain  from  the  use  of  food,  air,  medicine,  or  any 
other  thing,  without  which  he  cannot  live;  yet  hathjbhat^man 
ie  liberty  to 


If  a  man  be  interrogated  by  the  sovereign,  or  his  authority, 
concerning  a  crime  done  by  himself,  he  is  not  bound,  without 
assurance  of  pardon,  to  confess  it;  because  no  man,  as  I  have  shown 
in  the  same  chapter,  can  be  obliged  by  convenant  to  accuse  him- 
self. 

Again,  the  consent  of  a  subject  to  sovereign  power  is  con- 
tained in  these  words,  "I  authorize,  or  take  upon  me,  all  his 
actions;"  in  which  there  is  no  restriction  at  all  of  his  own  former 
natural  liberty:  for  by  allowing  him  to  kill  me,  I  am  not  bound 
to  kill  myself  when  he  commands  me.  It  is  one  thing  to  say 
"kill  me,  or  my  fellow,  if  you  please;"  another  thing  to  say,  "I 
will  kill  myself,  or  my  fellow."  It  followeth  therefore,  that 

No  man  is  bound  by  the  words  themselves,  either  to  kill  him- 
self or  any  other  man;  and  consequently,  that  the  obligation  a 
man  may  sometimes  have,  upon  the  command  of  the  sovereign 
to  execute  any  dangerous  or  dishonorable  office,  dependeth 
not  on  the  words  of  our  submission;  but  on  the  intention,  which  is 
to  be  understood  by  the  end  thereof.  When  therefore  our  refusal 
to  obey  frustrates  the  end  for  which  the  sovereignty  was  ordained, 
then  there  is  no  liberty  to  refuse  :  otherwise  there  is. 

Upon  this  ground,  a  man  that  is  commanded  as  a  soldier  to  fight 
against  the  enemy,  though  his  sovereign  have  right  enough  to 
punish  his  refusal  with  death,  may  nevertheless  in  many  cases 
refuse,  without  injustice;  as  when  he  substituteth  a  sufficient 


HOBBES  337 

soldier  in  his  place:  for  in  this  case  he  deserteth  not  the  service 
of  the  commonwealth.  And  there  is  allowance  to  be  made  for 
natural  timorousness;  not  only  to  women,  of  whom  no  such 
dangerous  duty  is  expected,  but  also  to  men  of  feminine  courage. 
When  armies  fight,  there  is  on  one  side,  or  both,  a  running  away; 
yet  when  they  do  it  not  out  of  treachery,  but  fear,  they  are  not 
esteemed  to  do  it  unjustly,  but  dishonorably.  For  the  same 
reason,  to  avoid  battle  is  not  injustice,  but  cowardice.  But  he 
that  enrolleth  himself  a  soldier,  or  taketh  impressed  money, 
taketh  away  the  excuse  of  a  timorous  nature;  and  is  obliged,  not 
only  to  go  to  the  battle,  but  also  not  to  run  from  it,  without  his 
captain's  leave.  And  when  the  defence  of  the  commonwealth  re- 
quireth  at  once  the  help  of  all  that  are  able  to  bear  arms,  every 
one  is  obliged;  because  otherwise  the  institution  of  the  common- 
wealth, which  they  have  not  the  purpose  or  courage  to  preserve, 
was  in  vain. 

To  resist  the  sword  of  the  commonwealth  in  defence  of  another 
man  guilty  or  innocent,  no  man  hath  liberty;  because  such  liberty 
takes  away  from  the  sovereign  the  means  of  protecting  us;  and 
is  therefore  destructive  of  the  very  essence  of  government.  But 
in  case  a  great  many  men  together  have  already  resisted  the  sov- 
ereign power  unjustly,  or  committed  some  capital  crime  for  which 
every  one  of  them  expecteth  death,  whether  have  they  not  the 
liberty  then  to  join  together,  and  assist  and  defend  one  another? 
Certainly  they  have;  for  they  but  defend  their  lives,  which  the 
guilty  man  may  as  well  do  as  the  innocent.  There  was  indeed 
injustice  in  the  first  breach  of  their  duty;  their  bearing  of  arms 
subsequent  to  it,  though  it  be  to  maintain  what  they  have  done, 
is  no  new  unjust  act.  And  if  it  be  only  to  defend  their  persons,  it 
it  not  unjust  at  all.  But  the  offer  of  pardon  taketh  from  them 
to  whom  it  is  offered  the  plea  of  self-defence,  and  maketh  their 
perseverance  in  assisting  or  defending  the  rest  unlawful. 

As  for  other  liberties,  they  depend  on  the  silence  of  the  law. 
In  cases  where  the  sovereign  has  prescribed  no  rule,  there  the 
subject  hath  the  liberty  to  do,  or  forbear,  according  to  his  own 
discretion.  And  therefore  such  liberty  is  in  some  places  more, 
and  in  some  less;  and  in  some  times  more,  in  other  times  less, 
according  as  they  that  have  the  sovereignty  shall  think  most 
convenient.  As  for  example,  there  was  a  time  when,  in  England, 
a  man  might  enter  into  his  own  land,  and  dispossess  such  as 
wrongfully  possessed  it,  by  force.  But  in  aftertimes,  that  liberty 
of  forcible  entry  was  taken  away  by  a  statute  made  by  the  king 
in  parliament.  And  in  some  places  of  the  world  men  have 


338  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  liberty  of  many  wives;  in  other  places  such  liberty  is  not 
allowed. 

If  a  subject  have  a  controversy  with  his  sovereign,  of  debt, 
or  of  right  of  possession  of  lands  or  goods,  or  concerning  any  ser- 
vice required  at  his  hands,  or  concerning  any  penalty,  corporal 
or  pecuniary,  grounded  on  a  precedent  law,  he  hath  the  same 
liberty  to  sue  for  his  right  as  if  it  were  against  a  subject,  and  before 
such  judges  as  are  appointed  by  the  sovereign.  For  seeing  the 
sovereign  demandeth  by  force  of  a  former  law,  and  not  by  virtue  of 
his  power,  he  declareth  thereby  that  he  requireth  no  more  than 
shall  appear  to  be  due  by  that  law.  The  suit  therefore  is  not 
contrary  to  the  will  of  the  sovereign;  and  consequently  the  sub- 
ject hath  the  liberty  to  demand  the"  hearing  of  his  cause,  and  sen- 
tence, according  to  that  law.  But  if  he  demand  or  take  anything 
by  pretence  of  his  power  there  lieth,  in  that  case,  no  action  of 
law;  for  all  that  is  done  by  him  in  virtue  of  his  power,  is  done  by 
the  authority  of  every  subject,  and  consequently  he  that  brings 
an  action  against  the  sovereign,  brings  it  against  himself. 

If  a  monarch,  or  sovereign  assembly,  grant  a  liberty  to  all  or 
any  of  his  subjects,  which  grant  standing,  he  is  disabled  to  pro- 
vide for  their  safety,  the  grant  is  void,  unless  he  directly  renounce 
or  transfer  the  sovereignty  to  another.  For  in  that  he  might 
openly,  if  it  had  been  his  will,  and  in  plain  terms,  have  renounced 
or  transferred  it,  and  did  not;  it  is  to  be  understood  it  was  not  his 
will,  but  that  the  grant  proceeded  from  ignorance  of  the  repug- 
nancy between  such  a  liberty  and  the  sovereign  power,  and  there- 
fore the  sovereignty  is  still  retained,  and  consequently  all  those 
powers  which  are  necessary  to  the  exercising  thereof;  such  as 
are  the  power  of  war  and  peace,  of  judicature,  of  appointing 
officers  and  councillors,  of  levying  money,  and  the  rest  named  in 
the  1 8th  chapter. 

The  obligation  of  subjects  to  the  sovereign  is  understood  to 
last  as  long,  and  no  longer,  than  the  power  lasteth  by  which  he 
is  able  to  protect  them.  For  the  right  men  have  by  nature  to 
protect  themselves,  when  none  else  can  protect  them,  can  by  no 
covenant  be  relinquished.  The  sovereignty  is  the  soul  of  the 
commonwealth,  which  once  departed  from  the  body,  the  members 
do  no  more  receive  their  motion  from  it.  The  end  of  obedience 
is  protection,  which,  wheresoever  a  man  seeth  it,  either  in  his  own 
or  in  another's  sword,  nature  applieth  his  obedience  to  it,  and 
his  endeavor  to  maintain  it.  And  though  sovereignty,  in  the 
intention  of  them  that  make  it,  be  immortal,  yet  is  it  in  its  own 
nature  not  only  subject  to  violent  death  by  foreign  war,  but  also, 


HOBBES  339 

through  the  ignorance  and  passions  of  men,  it  hath  in  it,  from  the 
very  institution,  many  seeds  of  a  natural  mortality,  by  intestine 
discord. 

If  a  subject  be  taken  prisoner  in  war,  or  his  person,  or  his 
means  of  life  be  within  the  guards  of  the  enemy,  and  hath  his 
life  and  corporal  liberty  given  him  on  condition  to  be  subject 
to  the  victor,  he  hath  liberty  to  accept  the  condition;  and  having 
accepted  it,  is  the  subject  of  him  that  took  him,  because  he  had 
no  other  way  to  preserve  himself.  The  case  is  the  same  if  he 
be  detained  on  the  same  terms  in  a  foreign  country.  But  if  a 
man  be  held  in  prison,  or  bonds,  or  is  not  trusted  with  the  liberty 
of  his  body,  he  cannot  be  understood  to  be  bound  by  covenant 
to  subjection;  and  therefore  may,  if  he  can,  make  his  escape 
by  any  means  whatsoever. 

If  a  monarch  shall  relinquish  the  sovereignty,  both  for  himself 
and  his  heirs,  his  subjects  return  to  the  absolute  liberty  of  nature; 
because,  though  nature  may  declare  who  are  his  sons,  and  who  are 
the  nearest  of  his  kin,  yet  it  dependeth  on  his  own  will,  as  hath 
been  said  in  the  precedent  chapter,  who  shall  be  his  heir.  If 
therefore  he  will  have  no  heir,  there  is  no  sovereignty,  nor  sub- 
jection. The  case  is  the  same  if  he  die  without  known  kindred, 
and  without  declaration  of  his  heir.  For  then  there  can  no 
heir  be  known,  and  consequently  no  subjection  be  due. 

If  the  sovereign  banish  his  subject,  during  the  banishment 
he  is  not  subject.  But  he  that  is  sent  on  a  message,  or  hath  leave 
to  travel,  is  still  subject;  but  it  is  by  contract  between  sovereigns, 
not  by  virtue  of  the  covenant  of  subjection.  For  whosoever 
entereth  into  another's  dominion  is  subject  to  all  the  laws  thereof, 
unless  he  have  a  privilege  by  the  amity  of  the  sovereigns,  or  by 
special  license. 

If  a  monarch  subdued  by  war  render  himself  subject  to  the 
victor,  his  subjects  are  delivered  from  their  former  obligation, 
and  become  obliged  to  the  victor.  But  if  he  be  held  prisoner,  or 
have  not  the  liberty  of  his  own  body,  he  is  not  understood  to  have 
given  away  the  right  of  sovereignty;  and  therefore  his  subjects  are 
obliged  to  yield  obedience  to  the  magistrates  formerly  placed, 
governing  not  in  their  own  name,  but  in  his.  For,  his  right  re- 
maining, the  question  is  only  of  the  administration;  that  is  to  say, 
of  the  magistrates  and  officers,  which,  if  we  have  not  means  to 
name,  he  is  supposed  to  approve  those  which  he  himself  had 
formerly  appointed. 


340  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

6.     Civil  Laws  l 


Ch.  xxvi.     Of  Civil  Laws. 

By  civil  laws,  I  understand  the  laws  that  men  are  therefore 
bound  to  observe,  because  they  are  members,  not  of  this  or  that 
commonwealth  in  particular,  but  of  a  commonwealth.  For  the 
knowledge  of  particular  laws  belongeth  to  them  that  profess  the 
study  of  the  laws  of  their  several  countries;  but  the  knowledge  of 
civil  law  in  general  to  any  man.  The  ancient  law  of  Rome  was 
called  their  civil  law,  from  the  word  civitas,  which  signifies  a 
commonwealth:  and  those  countries  which  having  been  under 
the  Roman  empire,  and  governed  by  that  law,  retain  still  such 
part  thereof  as  they  think  fit,  call  that  part  the  civil  law,  to  dis- 
tinguish it  from  the  rest  of  their  own  civil  laws.  But  that  is  not 
it  I  intend  to  speak  of  here;  my  design  being  not  to  show  what  is 
law  here  and  there;  but  what  is  law;  as  Plato,  Aristotle,  Cicero, 
and  divers  others  have  done,  without  taking  upon  them  the  pro- 
fession of  the  study  of  the  law. 

And  first  it  is  manifest  that  the  law  in  general  is  not  counsel, 
but  command;  not  a  command  of  any  man  to  any  man,  but  only 
of  him  whose  command  is  addressed  to  one  formerly  obliged 
to  obey  him.  And  as  for  civil  law,  it  addeth  only  the  name  of 
the  person  commanding,  which  is  persona  civitatis,  the  person 
of  the  commonwealth. 

Which  considered,  I  define  civil  law  in  this  manner.  "Civil  law 
is  to  every  subject  those  rules  which  the  commonwealth  hath 
commanded  him,  by  word,  writing,  or  other  sufficient  sign  of 
the  will,  to  make  use  of,  for  the  distinction  of  right  and  wrong; 
that  is  to  say,  of  what  is  contrary  and  what  is  not  contrary  to 
the  rule." 

In  which  definition,  there  is  nothing  that  is  not  at  first  sight 
evident.  For  every  man  seeth  that  some  laws  are  addressed 
to  all  the  subjects  in  general;  some  to  particular  provinces;  some 
to  particular  vocations ;  and  some  to  particular  men ;  and  are  there- 
fore laws  to  every  of  those  to  whom  the  command  is  directed, 
and  to  none  else:  As  also,  that  laws  are  the  rules  of  just  and  un- 
just; nothing  being  reputed  unjust  that  is  not  contrary  to  some 
law.  Likewise,  that  none  can  make  laws  but  the  commonwealth; 
because  our  subjection  is  to  the  commonwealth  only:  and  that 
commands  are  to  be  signified  by  sufficient  signs;  because  a  man 
knows  not  otherwise  how  to  obey  them.  And  therefore,  what- 
soever can  from  this  definition  by  necessary  consequence  be 

xPart  II,  ch.  xxvi. 


HOBBES  341 

deduced,  ought  to  be  acknowledged  for  truth.     Now  I  deduce  from, 
it  this  that  followeth. 

1.  The  legislator  in  all  commonwealths  is  only  the  sovereign, 
be  he  one  man,  as  in  a  monarchy,  or  one  assembly  of  men,  as  in  a 
democracy,  or  aristocracy.     For  the  legislator  is  he  that  maketh 
the  law.    And   the   commonwealth   only   prescribes   and   com- 
mandeth  the  observation  of  those  rules  which  we  call  law:  there- 
fore  the   commonwealth   is   the   legislator.     But   the   common- 
wealth is  no  person,  nor  has  capacity  to  do  anything  but  by  the 
representative,  that  is,  the  sovereign;  and  therefore  the  sovereign 
is  the  sole  legislator.     For  the  same  reason,  none  can  abrogate 
a  law  made,  but  the  sovereign;  because  a  law  is  not  abrogated 
but  by  another  law,  that  forbiddeth  it  to  be  put  in  execution. 

2.  The  sovereign  of  a  commonwealth,  be  it  an  assembly  or 
one  man,  is  not  subject  to  the  civil  laws.     For  having  power  to 
make  and  repeal  laws,  he  may  when  he  pleaseth  free  himself  from 
that  subjection,  by  repealing  those  laws  that  trouble  him  and 
making  of  new;  and  consequently  he  was  free  before.     For  he  is 
free  that  can  be  free  when  he  will :  nor  is  it  possible  for  any  person 
to  be  bound  to  himself;  because  he  that  can  bind,  can  release; 
and  therefore  he  that  is  bound  to  himself  only,  is  not  bound. 

3.  When  long  use  obtaineth  the  authority  of  a  law,  it  is  not 
the  length  of  time  that  maketh  the  authority,  but  the  will  of  the 
sovereign  signified  by  his  silence,  for  silence  is  sometimes  an 
argument  of  consent;  and  it  is  no  longer  law  than  the  sovereign 
shall  be  silent  therein.    And  therefore  if  the  sovereign  shall  have 
a  question  of  right  grounded,  not  upon  his  present  will,  but  upon 
the  laws  formerly  made,  the  length  of  time  shall  bring  no  prejudice 
to  his  right;  but  the  question  shall  be  judged  by  equity.     For 
many  unjust  actions  and  unjust  sentences  go  uncontrolled  a 
longer  time  than  any  man  can  remember.    And  our  lawyers 
account  no  customs  law  but  such  as  are  reasonable,  and  that 
evil   customs  are  to  be  abolished.     But  the  judgment  of  what 
is   reasonable   and   of   what  is   to   be  abolished    belongeth   to 
him  that  maketh  the  law,  which  is  the  sovereign  assembly  or 
monarch. 

4.  The  law  of  nature  and  the  civil  law  contain  each  other, 
and  are  of  equal  extent.     For  the  laws  of  nature,  which  consist 
in  equity,  justice,  gratitude,  and  other  moral  virtues  on  these 
depending,  in  the  condition  of  mere  nature,  as  I  have  said  before 
in  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  chapter,  are  not  properly  laws,  but 
qualities  that  dispose  men  to  peace  and  obedience.     When  a 
commonwealth  is  once  settled,  then  are  they  actually  laws,  and 


-, 


342  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

not  before;  as  being  then  the  commands  of  the  commonwealth; 
and  therefore  also  civil  laws:  for  it  is  the  sovereign  power  that 
obliges  men  to  obey  them.  For  in  the  differences  of  private  men, 
to  declare  what  is  equity,  what  is  justice,  and  what  is  moral  virtue, 
and  to  make  them  binding,  there  is  need  of  the  ordinances  of 
sovereign  power,  and  punishments  to  be  ordained  for  such  as 
shall  break  them;  which  ordinances  are  therefore  part  of  the  civil 
law.  The  law  of  nature  therefore  is  a  part  of  the  civil  law  in  all 
commonwealths  of  the  world.  Reciprocally  also,  the  civil  law  is 
a  part  of  the  dictates  of  nature.  For  justice,  that  is  to  say, 
performance  of  covenant,  and  giving  to  every  man  his  own,  is  a 
dictate  of  the  law  of  nature.  But  every  subject  in  a  common- 
wealth hath  covenanted  to  obey  the  civil  law;  either  one  with 
another,  as  when  they  assemble  to  make  a  common  representative, 
or  with  the  representative  itself  one  by  one,  when  subdued  by 
the  sword  they  promise  obedience,  that  they  may  receive  life; 
and  therefore  obedience  to  the  civil  law  is  part  also  of  the  law  of 
nature.  Civil  and  natural  law  are  not  different  kinds,  but  differ- 
ent parts  of  law;  whereof  one  part  being  written,  is  called  civil, 
the  other  unwritten,  natural.  But  the  right  of  nature,  that  is, 
the  natural  liberty  of  man,  may  by  the  civil  law  be  abridged  and 
restrained:  nay,  the  end  of  making  laws  is  no  other  but  such 
restraint;  without  the  which  there  cannot  possibly  be  any  peace. 
And  law  was  brought  into  the  world  for  nothing  else  but  to  limit 
the  natural  liberty  of  particular  men,  in  such  manner  as  they  might 
not  hurt,  but  assist  one  another,  and  join  together  against  a 
common  enemy. 

5.  If  the  sovereign  of  one  commonwealth  subdue  a  people 
that  have  lived  under  other  written  laws,  and  afterwards  govern 
them  by  the  same  laws  by  which  they  were  governed  before, 
yet  those  laws  are  the  civil  laws  of  the  victor,  and  not  of  the  van- 
quished commonwealth.  For  the  legislator  is  he,  not  by  whose 
authority  the  laws  were  first  made,  but  by  whose  authority  they 
now  continue  to  be  laws.  And  therefore  where  there  be  divers 
provinces  within  the  dominion  of  a  commonwealth,  and  in  those 
provinces  diversity  of  laws,  which  commonly  are  called  the  customs 
of  each  several  province,  we  are  not  to  understand  that  such  cus- 
toms have  their  force  only  from  length  of  time;  but  that  they  were 
anciently  laws  written,  or  otherwise  made  known,  for  the  con- 
stitutions and  statutes  of  their  sovereigns;  and  are  now  laws 
not  by  virtue  of  the  prescription  of  time,  but  by  the  constitutions 
of  their  present  sovereigns.  But  if  an  unwritten  law,  in  all  the 
provinces  of  a  dominion,  shall  be  generally  observed,  and  no  in- 


HOBBES  343 

iquity  appear  in  the  use  thereof,  that  law  can  be  no  other  but  a 
law  of  nature,  equally  obliging  all  mankind. 

6.  Seeing  then  all  laws,  written  and  unwritten,  have  their 
authority  and  force  from  the  will  of  the  commonwealth,  that  is  to 
say,  from  the  will  of  the  representative,  which  in  a  monarchy 
is  a  monarch,  and  in  other  commonwealths  the  sovereign  assembly, 
a  man  may  wonder  from  whence  proceed  such  opinions  as  are 
found  in  the  books  of  lawyers  of  eminence  in  several  common- 
wealths, directly  or  by  consequence  making  the  legislative  power 
depend  on  private  men,  or  subordinate  judges.     As  for  example, 
"that  the  common  law  hath  no  controller  but  the  parliament;" 
which  is  true  only  where  a  parliament  has  the  sovereign  power, 
and  cannot  be  assembled  or  dissolved  but  by  their  own  discretion. 
For  if  there  be  a  right  in  any  else  to  dissolve  them,  there  is  a  right 
also  to  control  them,  and  consequently  to  control  their  controllings. 
And  if  there  be  no  such  right,  then  the  controller  of  laws  is  not  par- 
liamentum   but  rex  in  parliament.    And  where  a  parliament  is 
sovereign,  if  it  should  assemble  never  so  many  or  so  wise  men 
from  the  countries  subject  to  them,  for  whatsoever  cause,  yet 
there  is  no  man  will  believe  that  such  an  assembly  hath  thereby 
acquired  to  themselves  a  legislative  power.     "Item"  that  the 
two  aims  of  a  commonwealth  are   force   and   justice;    the  first 
whereof  is  in  the  king,  the  other  deposited  in  the  nands  of  the 
parliament.     As  if   a  commonwealth   could   consist  where  the 
force  were  in  any  hand  which  justice  had  not  the  authority  to 
command  and  govern. 

7.  That  law  can  never  be  against  reason  our  lawyers  are  agreed ; 
and  that  not  the  letter  that  is  every  construction  of  it,  but  that 
which  is  according  to  the  intention  of  the  legislator,  is  the  law. 
And  it  is  true,  but  the  doubt  is  of  whose  reason  it  is  that  shall 
be  received  for  law.     It  is  not  meant  of  any  private  reason,  for 
then  there  would  be  as  much  contradiction  in  the  laws  as  there 
is  in  the  schools;  nor  yet,  as  Sir  Edward  Coke  makes  it,  an  "arti- 
ficial perfection  of  reason,  gotten  by  long  study,  observation,  and 
experience,"  as  his  was.     For  it  is  possible  long  study  may  increase 
and  confirm  erroneous  sentences,  and  where  men  build  on  false 
grounds,  the  more  they  build  the  greater  is  the  ruin:  and  of  those 
that  study  and  observe  with  equal  time  and  diligence,  the  reason 
and  resolutions  are,  and  must  remain,  discordant,  and  therefore 
it  is  not  that  juris  prudentia  or  wisdom  of  subordinate  judges, 
but  the  reason  of  this  our  artificial  man  the  commonwealth,  and 
his  command  that  maketh  law:  and  the  commonwealth  being 
in  their  representative  but  one  person,  there  cannot  easily  arise 


344  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

any  contradiction  in  the  laws;  and  when  there  doth,  the  same 
reason  is  able,  by  interpretation  or  alteration,  to  take  it  away. 
In  all  courts  of  justice,  the  sovereign,  which  is  the  person  of  the 
commonwealth,  is  he  that  judgeth;  the  subordinate  judge  ought 
to  have  regard  to  the  reason  which  moved  his  sovereign  to  make 
such  law  that  his  sentence  may  be  according  thereunto,  which 
then  is  his  sovereign's  sentence,  otherwise  it  is  his  own,  and  an 
unjust  one. 

8.  From  this  that  the  law  is  a  command,  and  a  command 
consisteth  in  declaration  or  manifestation  of  the  will  of  him  that 
commandeth,  by  voice,  writing,  or  some  other  sufficient  argument 
of  the  same,  we  may  understand  that  the  command  of  the  com- 
monwealth is  law  only  to  those  that  have  means  to  take  notice 
of  it.  Over  natural  fools,  children,  or  madmen,  there  is  no  law, 
no  more  than  over  brute  beasts,  nor  are  they  capable  of  the  title 
of  just  or  unjust;  because  they  had  never  power  to  make  any 
covenant,  or  to  understand  the  consequences  thereof,  and  conse- 
quently never  took  upon  them  to  authorize  the  actions  of  any 
sovereign,  as  they  must  do  that  make  to  themselves  a  common- 
wealth. And  as  those  from  whom  nature  or  accident  hath  taken 
away  the  notice  of  all  laws  in  general ;  so  also  every  man  from  whom 
any  accident,  not  proceeding  from  his  own  default,  hath  taken 
away  the  means  to  take  notice  of  any  particular  law,  is  excused 
if  he  observe  it  not,  and,  to  speak  properly,  that  law  is  no  law  to 
him.  It  is  therefore  necessary  to  consider  in  this  place  what  argu- 
ments and  signs  be  sufficient  for  the  knowledge  of  what  is  the  law, 
that  is  to  say,  what  is  the  will  of  the  sovereign  as  well  in  mon- 
archies as  in  other  forms  of  government. 

And  first,  if  it  be  a  law  that  obliges  all  the  subjects  without 
exception,  and  is  not  written,  nor  otherwise  published  in  such 
places  as  they  may  take  notice  thereof,  it  is  a  law  of  nature. 
For  whatsoever  men  are  to  take  knowledge  of  for  law,  not  upon 
other  men's  words,  but  every  one  from  his  own  reason,  must  be 
such  as  is  agreeable  to  the  reason  of  all  men;  which  no  law  can  be 
but  the  law  of  nature.  The  laws  of  nature  therefore  need  not 
any  publishing,  nor  proclamation;  as  being  contained  in  this  one 
sentence,  approved  by  all  the  world,  "Do  not  that  to  another, 
which  thou  thinkest  unreasonable  to  be  done  by  another  to  thy- 
self." 

Secondly,  if  it  be  a  law  that  obliges  only  some  condition  of  men, 
or  one  particular  man,  and  be  not  written,  nor  published  by  word, 
then  also  it  is  a  law  of  nature,  and  known  by  the  same  arguments 
and  signs  that  distinguish  those  in  such  a  condition  from  other 


HOBBES  345 

subjects.  For  whatsoever  law  is  not  written,  or  some  way  pub- 
lished by  him  that  makes  it  law,  can  be  known  no  way  but  by 
the  reason  of  him  that  is  to  obey  it;  and  is  therefore  also  a  law 
not  only  civil,  but  natural.  For  example,  if  the  sovereign  employ 
a  public  minister,  without  written  instructions  what  to  do,  he  is 
obliged  to  take  for  instructions  the  dictates  of  reason;  as  if  he 
make  a  judge,  the  judge  is  to  take  notice  that  his  sentence  ought 
to  be  according  to  the  reason  of  his  sovereign,  which  being  always 
understood  to  be  equity,  he  is  bound  to  it  by  the  law  of  nature: 
or  if  an  ambassador,  he  is,  in  all  things  not  contained  in  his 
written  instructions,  to  take  for  instruction  that  which  reason 
dictates  to  be  most  conducing  to  his  sovereign's  interest;  and  so 
of  all  other  ministers  of  the  sovereignty,  public  and  private. 
All  which  instructions  of  natural  reason  may  be  comprehended 
under  one  name  of  " fidelity;"  which  is  a  branch  of  natural  justice. 

The  law  of  nature  excepted,  it  belongeth  to  the  essence  of  all 
other  laws  to  be  made  known  to  every  man  that  shall  be  obliged 
to  obey  them,  either  by  word,  or  writing,  or  some  other  act, 
known  to  proceed  from  the  sovereign  authority.  For  the  will  of 
another  cannot  be  understood,  but  by  his  own  word,  or  act,  or  by 
conjecture  taken  from  his  scope  and  purpose;  which  in  the  person 
of  the  commonwealth  is  to  be  supposed  always  consonant  to 
equity  and  reason.  And  in  ancient  time,  before  letters  were  in 
common  use,  the  laws  were  many  times  put  into  verse;  that  the 
rude  people  taking  pleasure  in  singing  or  reciting  them,  might  the 
more  easily  retain  them  in  memory.  And  for  the  same  reason 
Solomon  (Prov.  vii.  3)  adviseth  a  man  to  bind  the  ten  command- 
ments upon  his  ten  fingers.  And  for  the  law  which  Moses  gave 
to  the  people  of  Israel  at  the  renewing  of  the  covenant  (Deut.  xi. 
19),  he  biddeth  them  to  teach  it  their  children,  by  discoursing 
of  it  both  at  home  and  upon  the  way;  at  going  to  bed,  and  at  rising 
from  bed;  and  to  write  it  upon  the  posts  and  doors  of  their  houses; 
and  (Deut.  xxxi.  12)  to  assemble  the  people,  man,  woman,  and 
child,  to  hear  it  read. 

Nor  is  it  enough  the  law  be  written  and  published;  but  also 
that  there  be  manifest  signs  that  it  proceedeth  from  the  will  of 
the  sovereign.  For  private  men,  when  they  have,  or  think  they 
have,  force  enough  to  secure  their  unjust  designs,  and  convoy 
them  safely  to  their  ambitious  ends,  may  publish  for  laws  what 
they  please,  without  or  against  the  legislative  authority.  There 
is  therefore  requisite,  not  only  a  declaration  of  the  law,  but  also 
sufficient  signs  of  the  author  and  authority.  The  author  or 
legislator  is  supposed  in  every  commonwealth  to  be  evident, 


346  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

because  he  is  the  sovereign,  who  having  been  constituted  by  the 
consent  of  every  one,  is  supposed  by  every  one  to  be  sufficiently 
known.  And  though  the  ignorance  and  security  of  men  be  such, 
for  the  most  part,  as  that  when  the  memory  of  the  first  constitu- 
tion of  their  commonwealth  is  worn  out,  they  do  not  consider  by 
whose  power  they  used  to  be  defended  against  their  enemies, 
and  to  have  their  industry  protected,  and  to  be  righted  when 
injury  is  done  them;  yet  because  no  man  that  considers  can  make 
question  of  it,  no  excuse  can  be  derived  from  the  ignorance  of 
where  the  sovereignty  is  placed.  And  it  is  a  dictate  of  natural 
reason,  and  consequently  an  evident  law  of  nature,  that  no  man 
ought  to  weaken  that  power,  the  protection  whereof  he  hath 
himself  demanded,  or  wittingly  received  against  others.  There- 
fore of  who  is  sovereign,  no  man,  but  by  his  own  fault  (whatsoever 
evil  men  suggest) ,  can  make  any  doubt.  The  difficulty  consisteth 
in  the  evidence  of  the  authority  derived  from  him;  the  removing 
whereof  dependeth  on  the  knowledge  of  the  public  registers, 
public  counsels,  public  ministers,  and  public  seals;  by  which  all 
laws  are  sufficiently  verified;  verified,  I  say,  not  authorized:  for 
the  verification  is  but  the  testimony  and  record,  not  the  authority 
of  the  law;  which  consisteth  in  the  command  of  the  sovereign 
only. 

If  therefore  a  man  have  a  question  of  injury  depending  on  the 
law  of  nature,  that  is  to  say,  on  common  equity,  the  sentence  of 
the  judge  that  by  commission  hath  authority  to  take  cognizance 
of  such  causes,  is  a  sufficient  verification  of  the  law  of  nature 
in  that  individual  case.  For  though  the  advice  of  one  that  pro- 
fesseth  the  study  of  the  law  be  useful  for  the  avoiding  of 
contention,  yet  it  is  but  advice:  it  is  the  judge  must  tell  men  what 
is  law,  upon  the  hearing  of  the  controversy. 

But  when  the  question  is  of  injury,  or  crime,  upon  a  written 
law,  every  man  by  recourse  to  the  registers,  by  himself  or  others, 
may,  if  he  will,  be  sufficiently  informed,  before  he  do  such  injury,  or 
commit  the  crime,  whether  it  be  an  injury  or  not :  nay,  he  ought  to 
do  so :  for  when  a  man  doubts  whether  the  act  he  goeth  about  be 
just  or  unjust  and  may  inform  himself  if  he  will,  the  doing  is 
unlawful.  In  like  manner,  he  that  supposeth  himself  injured 
in  a  case  determined  by  the  written  law,  which  he  may,  by  him- 
self or  others,  see  and  consider,  if  he  complain  before  he  consults 
with  the  law,  he  does  unjustly,  and  bewrayeth  a  disposition 
rather  to  vex  other  men  than  to  demand  his  own  right. 

If  the  question  be  of  obedience  to  a  public  officer,  to  have  seen 
his  commission  with  the  public  seal,  and  heard  it  read,  or  to  have 


HOBBES  347 

had  the  means  to  be  informed  of  it,  if  a  man  would,  is  a  sufficient 
verification  of  his  authority.  For  every  man  is  obliged  to  do 
his  best  endeavor  to  inform  himself  of  all  written  laws  that  may 
concern  his  own  future  actions. 

The  legislator  known,  and  the  laws,  either  by  writing  or  by 
the  light  of  nature,  sufficiently  published,  there  wanteth  yet 
another  very  material  circumstance  to  make  them  obligatory. 
For  it  is  not  the  letter,  but  the  intendment  or  meaning,  that  is 
to  say,  the  authentic  interpretation  of  the  law  (which  is  the  sense 
of  the  legislator),  in  which  the  nature  of  the  law  consisteth;  and 
therefore  the  interpretation  of  all  laws  dependeth  on  the  authority 
sovereign;  and  the  interpreters  can  be  none  but  those  which  the 
sovereign,  to  whom  only  the  subject  oweth  obedience,  shall  appoint. 
For  else,  by  the  craft  of  an  interpreter,  the  law  may  be  made  to 
bear  a  sense  contrary  to  that  of  the  sovereign,  by  which  means 
the  interpreter  becomes  the  legislator. 

All  laws,  written  and  unwritten,  have  need  of  interpretation. 
The  unwritten  law  of  nature,  though  it  be  easy  to  such  as,  without 
partiality  and  passion,  make  use  of  their  natural  reason,  and  there- 
fore leave  the  violators  thereof  without  excuse;  yet  considering 
there  be  very  few,  perhaps  none,  that  in  some  cases  are  not 
blinded  by  self-love  or  some  other  passion,  it  is  now  become  of  all 
laws  the  most  obscure,  and  has  consequently  the  greatest  need  of 
able  interpreters.  The  written  laws,  if  they  be  short,  are  easily 
misinterpreted,  from  the  divers  significations  of  a  word  or  two: 
if  long,  they  be  more  obscure  by  the  divers  significations 
of  many  words:  insomuch  as  no  written  law,  delivered  in  few  or 
many  words,  can  be  well  understood,  without  a  perfect  understand- 
ing of  the  final  causes  for  which  the  law  was  made,  the  knowledge 
of  which  final  causes  is  in  the  legislator.  To  him  therefore  there 
cannot  be  any  knot  in  the  law  insoluble;  either  by  finding  out 
the  ends,  to  undo  it  by;  or  else  by  making  what  ends  he  will,  as 
Alexander  did  with  his  sword  in  the  Gordian  knot,  by  the  legis- 
lative power,  which  no  other  interpreter  can  do. 

The  interpretation  of  the  laws  of  nature  in  a  commonwealth 
dependeth  not  on  the  books  of  moral  philosophy.  The  authority 
of  writers,  without  the  authority  of  the  commonwealth,  maketh 
not  their  opinions  law,  be  they  never  so  true.  That  which  I 
have  written  in  this  treatise  concerning  the  moral  virtues,  and  of 
their  necessity  for  the  procuring  and  maintaining  peace,  though 
it  be  evident  truth,  is  not  therefore  presently  law;  but  because  in 
all  commonwealths  in  the  world  it  is  part  of  the  civil  law.  For 
though  it  be  naturally  reasonable,  yet  it  is  by  the  sovereign 


348  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

power  that  it  is  law:  otherwise,  it  were  a  great  error  to  call  the 
laws  of  nature  unwritten  law;  whereof  we  see  so  many  volumes 
published,  and  in  them  so  many  contradictions  of  one  another 
and  of  themselves. 

The  interpretation  of  the  law  of  nature  is  the  sentence  of 
the  judge  constituted  by  the  sovereign  authority,  to  hear  and 
determine  such  controversies  as  depend  thereon;  and  consisteth 
in  the  application  of  the  law  to  the  present  case.  For  in  the  act 
of  judicature,  the  judge  doth  no  more  but  consider  whether  the 
demand  of  the  party  be  consonant  to  natural  reason  and  equity; 
and  the  sentence  he  giveth  is  therefore  the  interpretation  of  the 
law  of  nature;  which  interpretation  is  authentic,  not  because  it  is 
his  private  sentence,  but  because  he  giveth  it  by  authority  of  the 
sovereign,  whereby  it  becomes  the  sovereign's  sentence,  which  is 
law  for  that  time,  to  the  parties  pleading. 

But  because  there  is  no  judge  subordinate  nor  sovereign  but 
may  err  in  a  judgment  of  equity,  if  afterward  in  another  like  case 
he  find  it  more  consonant  to  equity  to  give  a  contrary  sentence, 
he  is  obliged  to  do  it.  No  man's  error  becomes  his  own  law;  nor 
obliges  him  to  persist  in  it.  Neither,  for  the  same  reason,  becomes 
it  a  law  to  other  judges,  though  sworn  to  follow  it.  For  though  a 
wrong  sentence  given  by  authority  of  the  sovereign,  if  he  know 
and  allow  it,  in  such  laws  as  are  mutable,  be  a  constitution  of  a 
new  law,  in  cases  in  which  every  little  circumstance  is  the  same; 
yet  in  laws  immutable,  such  as  are  the  laws  of  nature,  they  are  no 
laws  to  the  same  or  other  judges,  in  the  like  cases  for  ever  after. 
Princes  succeed  one  another;  and  one  judge  passeth,  another 
cometh;  nay,  heaven  and  earth  shall  pass;  but  not  one  tittle  of 
the  law  of  nature  shall  pass;  for  it  is  the  eternal  law  of  God. 
Therefore  all  the  sentences  of  precedent  judges  that  have  ever  been 
cannot  altogether  make  a  law  contrary  to  natural  equity:  nor  any 
examples  of  former  judges  can  warrant  an  unreasonable  sentence, 
or  discharge  the  present  judge  of  the  trouble  of  studying  what  is 
equity,  in  the  case  he  is  to  judge,  from  the  principles  of  his  own 
natural  reason.  For  example  sake,  it  is  against  the  law  of  nature 
to  punish  the  innocent;  and  innocent  is  he  that  acquitteth  him- 
self judicially,  and  is  acknowledged  for  innocent  by  the  judge. 
Put  the  case  now  that  a  man  is  accused  of  a  capital  crime,  and 
seeing  the  power  and  malice  of  some  enemy,  and  the  frequent 
corruption  and  partiality  of  judges,  runneth  away  for  fear  of  the 
event,  and  afterwards  is  taken,  and  brought  to  a  legal  trial,  and 
maketh  it  sufficiently  appear  he  was  not  guilty  of  the  crime,  and 
being  thereof  acquitted,  is  nevertheless  condemned  to  lose  his 


HOBBES  349 

goods;  this  is  a  manifest  condemnation  of  the  innocent.  I  say 
therefore  that  there  is  no  place  in  the  world  where  this  can  be 
an  interpretation  of  a  law  of  nature,  or  be  made  a  law  by  the 
sentences  of  precedent  judges  that  had  done  the  same.  For  he 
that  judged  it  first,  judged  unjustly;  and  no  injustice  can  be  a 
pattern  of  judgment  to  succeeding  judges.  A  written  law  may 
forbid  innocent  men  to  fly,  and  they  may  be  punished  for  flying: 
but  that  flying  for  fear  of  injury  should  be  taken  for  presumption 
of  guilt,  after  a  man  is  already  absolved  of  the  crime  judicially, 
is  contrary  to  the  nature  of  a  presumption,  which  hath  no  place 
after  judgment  is  given.  Yet  this  is  set  down  by  a  great  lawyer 
for  the  common  law  of  England.  "If  a  man,"  saith  he,  "that  is 
innocent,  be  accused  of  felony,  and  for  fear  flyeth  for  the  same, 
albeit  he  judicially  acquitteth  himself  of  the  felony,  yet  if  it  be 
found  that  he  fled  for  the  felony,  he  shall  notwithstanding  his 
innocency,  forfeit  all  his  goods,  chattels,  debts,  and  duties.  For 
as  to  the  forfeiture  of  them,  the  law  will  admit  no  proof  against 
the  presumption  in  law,  grounded  upon  his  flight."  Here  you 
see  an  innocent  man  judicially  acquitted,  notwithstanding  his 
innocency,  when  no  written  law  forbade  him  to  fly,  after  his 
acquittal,  upon  a  presumption  in  law,  condemned  to  lose  all 
the  goods  he  hath.  If  the  law  ground  upon  his  flight  a  presump- 
tion of  the  fact,  which  was  capital,  the  sentence  ought  to  have 
been  capital:  if  the  presumption  were  not  of  the  fact,  for  what 
then  ought  he  to  lose  his  goods?  This  therefore  is  no  law  of 
England;  nor  is  the  condemnation  grounded  upon  a  presumption 
of  law,  but  upon  the  presumption  of  the  judges.  It  is  also  against 
law  to  say  that  no  proof  shall  be  admitted  against  a  presumption  of 
law.  For  all  judges,  sovereign  and  subordinate,  if  they  refuse  to 
hear  proof,  refuse  to  do  justice:  for  though  the  sentence  be  just, 
yet  the  judges  that  condemn  without  hearing  the  proofs  offered, 
are  unjust  judges;  and  their  presumption  is  but  prejudice;  which 
no  man  ought  to  bring  with  him  to  the  seat  of  justice,  whatsoever 
precedent  judgments  or  examples  he  shall  pretend  to  follow. 
There  be  other  things  of  this  nature,  wherein  men's  judgments 
have  been  perverted  by  trusting  to  precedents :  but  this  is  enough 
to  show  that  though  the  sentence  of  the  judge  be  a  law  to  the 
party  pleading,  yet  it  is  no  law  to  any  judge  that  shall  succeed 
him  in  that  office. 

In  like  manner,  when  question  is  of  the  meaning  of  written  laws, 
he  is  not  the  interpreter  of  them  that  writeth  a  commentary 
upon  them.  For  commentaries  are  commonly  more  subject  to 
cavil  than  the  text,  and  therefore  need  other  commentaries;  and 


350  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

so  there  will  be  no  end  of  such  interpretation.  And  therefore 
unless  there  be  an  interpreter  authorized  by  the  sovereign,  from 
which  the  subordinate  judges  are  not  to  recede,  the  interpreter 
can  be  no  other  than  the  ordinary  judges,  in  the  same  manner  as 
they  are  in  cases  of  the  unwritten  law;  and  their  sentences  are  to 
be  taken  by  them  that  plead  for  laws  in  that  particular  case;  but 
not  to  bind  other  judges  in  like  cases  to  give  like  judgments. 
For  a  judge  may  err  in  the  interpretation  even  of  written  laws; 
but  no  error  of  a  subordinate  judge  can  change  the  law,  which 
is  the  general  sentence  of  the  sovereign. 

In  written  laws,  men  use  to  make  a  difference  between  the 
letter  and  the  sentence  of  the  law:  and  when  by  the  letter  is 
meant  whatsoever  can  be  gathered  by  the  bare  words,  it  is  well 
distinguished.  For  the  significations  of  almost  all  words  are  either 
in  themselves,  or  in  the  metaphorical  use  of  them,  ambiguous; 
and  may  be  drawn  in  argument,  to  make  many  senses;  but  there 
is  only  one  sense  of  the  law.  But  if  by  the  letter  be  meant  the 
literal  sense,  then  the  letter  and  the  sentence  or  intention  of  the 
law,  is  all  one.  For  the  literal  sense  is  that  which  the  legislator 
intended  should  by  the  letter  of  the  law  be  signified.  Now  the 
intention  of  the  legislator  is  always  supposed  to  be  equity:  for  it 
were  a  great  contumely  for  a  judge  to  think  otherwise  of  the 
sovereign.  He  ought  therefore,  if  the  word  of  the  law  do  not 
fully  authorize  a  reasonable  sentence,  to  supply  it  with  the  law 
of  nature;  or  if  the  case  be  difficult,  to  respite  judgment  till  he 
have  received  more  ample  authority.  For  example,  a  written 
law  ordaineth  that  he  which  is  thrust  out  of  his  house  by  force 
shall  be  restored  by  force:  it  happens  that  a  man  by  negligence 
leaves  his  house  empty,  and  returning  is  kept  out  by  force,  in 
which  case  there  is  no  special  law  ordained.  It  is  evident  that 
this  case  is  contained  in  the  same  law:  for  else  there  is  no  remedy 
for  him  at  all;  which  is  to  be  supposed  against  the  intention  of  the 
legislator.  Again,  the  word  of  the  law  commandeth  to  judge 
according  to  the  evidence:  a  man  is  accused  falsely  of  a  fact 
which  the  judge  himself  saw  done  by  another,  and  not  by  him  that 
is  accused.  In  this  case  neither  shall  the  letter  of  the  law  be  fol- 
lowed to  the  condemnation  of  the  innocent,  nor  shall  the  judge  give 
sentence  against  the  evidence  of  the  witnesses,  because  the  letter 
of  the  law  is  to  the  contrary,  but  procure  of  the  sovereign  that 
another  be  made  judge,  and  himself  witness.  So  that  the  in- 
commodity  that  follows  the  bare  words  of  a  written  law  may 
lead  him  to  the  intention  of  the  law,  whereby  to  interpret  the  same 
the  better;  though  no  incommodity  can  warrant  a  sentence 


HOBBES  351 

against  the  law.  For  every  judge  of  right  and  wrong  is  not 
judge  of  what  is  commodious  or  incommodious  to  the  common- 
wealth. 

The  abilities  required  in  a  good  interpreter  of  the  law,  that  is  to 
say,  in  a  good  judge,  are  not  the  same  with  those  of  an  advocate, 
namely,  the  study  of  the  laws.  For  a  judge,  as  he  ought  to  take 
notice  of  the  fact  from  none  but  the  witnesses,  so  also  he  ought  to 
take  notice  of  the  law  from  nothing  but  the  statutes  and  constitu- 
tions of  the  sovereign,  alleged  in  the  pleading,  or  declared  to 
him  by  some  that  have  authority  from  the  sovereign  power  to 
declare  them;  and  need  not  take  care  beforehand  what  he  shall 
judge;  for  it  shall  be  given  him  what  he  shall  say  concerning  the 
fact,  by  witnesses;  and  what  he  shall  say  in  point  of  law,  from  those 
that  shall  in  their  pleadings  show  it,  and  by  authority  interpret 
it  upon  the  place.  The  Lords  of  parliament  in  England  were 
judges,  and  most  difficult  causes  have  been  heard  and  determined 
by  them;  yet  few  of  them  were  much  versed  in  the  study  of  the 
laws,  and  fewer  had  made  profession  of  them;  and  though  they 
consulted  with  lawyers  that  were  appointed  to  be  present  there 
for  that  purpose,  yet  they  alone  had  the  authority  of  giving  sen- 
tence. In  like  manner,  in  the  ordinary  trials  of  right,  twelve 
men  of  the  common  people  are  the  judges,  and  give  sentence, 
not  only  of  the  fact,  but  of  the  right;  and  pronounce  simply 
for  the  complainant,  or  for  the  defendant;  that  is  to  say,  are 
judges,  not  only  of  the  fact,  but  also  of  the  right:  and  in  a  ques- 
tion of  crime,  not  only  determine  whether  done,  or  not  done;  but 
also  whether  it  be  murder,  homicide,  felony,  assault,  and  the 
like,  which  are  determinations  of  law:  but  because  they  are  not 
supposed  to  know  the  law  of  themselves,  there  is  one  that  hath 
authority  to  inform  them  of  it,  in  the  particular  case  they  are  to 
judge  of.  But  yet  if  they  judge  not  according  to  that  he  tells 
them,  they  are  not  subject  thereby  to  any  penalty:  unless  it  be 
made  appear  that  they  did  it  against  their  consciences,  or  had 
been  corrupted  by  reward. 

The  things  that  make  a  good  judge  or  good  interpreter  of  the 
laws  are,  first,  a  right  understanding  of  that  principal  law  of  na- 
ture called  equity,  which  depending  not  on  the  reading  of  other 
men's  writings,  but  on  the  goodness  of  a  man's  own  natural 
reason  and  meditation,  is  presumed  to  be  in  those  most  that  have 
had  most  leisure  and  had  the  most  inclination  to  meditate 
thereon.  Secondly,  contempt  of  unnecessary  riches  and  prefer- 
ments. Thirdly,  to  be  able  in  judgment  to  divest  himself  of  all 
fear,  anger,  hatred,  love,  and  compassion.  Fourthly,  and  lastly, 


352  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

patience  to  hear,  diligent  attention  in  hearing,  and  memory  to 
retain,  digest  and  apply  what  he  hath  heard. 

SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

Stephen,  Leslie,  "Thomas  Hobbes,"  in  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 

Robertson,  Hobbes. 

Tonnies,  Hobbes:  Leben  und  Lehre,  pp.  1-71. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  ch.  viii. 

Pollock,  History  of  the  Science  of  Politics,  pp.  58-68. 

Graham,  English  Political  Philosophy,  pp.  1-49. 

Robertson,  Hobbes,  chs.  v-vii,  x. 

Tonnies,  Hobbes:  Leben  und  Lehre,  pp.  197-226. 

Bluntschli,  Geschichte  der  neueren  Staatswissenschaft,  pp.  119-129. 

Franck,   Reformateurs  et  publicistes  de  I'Europe,   dix-septieme  siecle,   pp. 

367-409. 
Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  II,  pp.  143-185. 


HARRINGTON 


XV.    JAMES  HARRINGTON  (1611-1677) 
INTRODUCTION 

Another  work  written  in  direct  reference  to  the  events  of  the 
Puritan  Revolution  is  the  Oceana  of  James  Harrington.  So  far 
as  Harrington  shared  any  association  with  active  politics  he  took 
a  conciliatory  and  non-partisan  position;  and  he  cannot  be 
definitely  classed  with  the  adherents  of  either  the  royalist  or  the 
republican  faction;  his  book  aroused  the  suspicion  of  both  parties. 

Harrington  belonged  to  an  old  country  family,  and  was  a  grand- 
nephew  of  the  first  Lord  Harrington.  After_graduation  from  , 
Oxford  he  spent  several  years  of  his  early  manhood  in  travel 
through  Holland,  France,  Germany,  and  Italy;  on  these  journeys 
his  chief  interest  lay  in  the  observation  of  political  institutions. 
Upon  his  return  to  England  he  received  appointment  to  the  suite 
of  Charles  I,  despite  the  fact  that  it  was  known  that  he  enter- 
tained republican  ideas.  After  the  imprisonment  of  the  king 
Harrington  was  dismissed  from  the  royal  service  by  Parliament, 
under  the  imputation  that  he  might  be  willing  to  aid  in  the  king's 
escape.  Upon  the  death  of  the  king  he  set  himself  to  the  task  of  ! 
designing  a  model  plan  of  government  to  be  adopted  by  the  Eng- 
lish people  in  place  of  the  monarchy  that  had  been  set  aside. 
The  result  of  this  undertaking  is  the  The  Commonwealth  of  Oceana:1 
the  work  is  a  political  romance,  in  which  " Oceana"  stands  for 
England. 

A  distinctive  feature  of  the  Oceana  is  the  doctrine  that  political  h 
supremacy  follows  naturally  superiority  in  the  ownership  of  prop-   ' 
ertyj.  and  that,  therefore,  political  stability  can  be  maintained   • 
only  where  sovereignty  is  located  in  such  part  of  the  population 
as  holds  the  greater  amount  of  property.     In  most  states  this 
would  mean,  according  to  the  author,  that  sovereignty  follows 
preponderance  in  land  ownership,  land  being  generally  the  most 

1  While  first  in  press  this  work  was  seized  at  Cromwell's  order;  it  was 
subsequently  allowed  to  be  printed,  through  the  intervention  of  Cromwell's 
daughter,  whose  favor  Harrington  had  won.  It  was  published  in  1656,  dedi- 
cated to  Cromwell. 

355 


356  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

important  form  of  property.  As  a  corollary  to  this  principle 
Harrington  finds  indispensable  for  every  commonwealth,  or  repub- 
lic, the  device  of  an  " equal  agrarian";  by  this  he  means  that  law 
should  limit  the  amount  of  property  in  land  that  may  be  held 
by  any  one  person,  and  thus  prevent  the  concentration  of  political 
power  in  the  hands  of  a  small  class  of  the  people.  A  further 
characteristic  part  of  the  book  is  the  solution  offered  to  the  problem 
<|>f  securing  a  constitution  through  which  all  elements  of  the  state 
Vork  toward  the  common  interest  of  the  whole  body  of  the  people. 
According  to  the  author  the  solution  of  this  problem  lies  in  the 
proper  form  of  governmental  organization;  the  chief  requirements 
are  that  the  government  should  be  fashioned  in  conformity  to 
certain  psychological  principles,  and  strengthened  through  certain 
subsidiary  provisions — notably  those  establishing  rotation  in 
office  and  election  by  secret  ballot.  Harrington's  discussion 
is  in  empirical  form,  and  manifests  his  wide  reading  in  history, 
his  study  of  the  writings  of  Plato,  Aristotle,  Machiavelli  and  other 
political  theorists,  and  his  observation  of  contemporary  events 
in  the  European  States.1 

READINGS  FROM  THE  OCEANA2 

1.     Principles  of  Political  Power:  The  Material  Influences* 

Janotti,  the  most  excellent  describer  of  the  commonwealth 
of  Venice,  divides  the  whole  series  of  government  into  two  times 
or  periods:  the  one  ending  with  the  liberty  of  Rome,  which  was 
the  course  or  empire,  as  I  may  call  it,  of  ancient  prudence,  first 
discovered  to  mankind  by  God  Himself  in  the  fabric  of  the 
commonwealth  of  Israel,  and  afterwards  picked  out  of  His  foot- 
steps in  nature,  and  unanimously  followed  by  the  Greeks  and 
Romans;  the  other  beginning  with  the  arms  of  Caesar,  which, 
extinguishing  liberty,  were  the  transition  of  ancient  into  modern 
prudence,  introduced  by  those  inundations  of  Huns,  Goths, 

1  Cf.  Masson,  Life  of  John  Milton,  Vol.  V,  pp.  483-4,  for  the  efforts  made 
by  Harrington  and  his  friends  to  get  Parliament  to  adopt  features  of  his  plan. 

Cf.  the  citations  of  Smith  and  Dwight  (p.  379,  infra)  for  study  of  the  influ- 
ence of  Harrington's  ideas  in  America. 

After  the  Restoration  Harrington  was  imprisoned  by  order  of  Charles  II, 
on  an  unfounded  charge  of  conspiracy.  He  was  finally  released,  but  not  un- 

j't     ^£±.^^    !_•«    1»          1i_1_    1*       J    t~  j_t          •  •I'll*  • 


showing  the  Principles  of  Government"  (Morley,  pp.  15-72).     In  the  three  other 
parts  the  details  of  the  ideal  political  organization  are  presented. 
3  Pp.  15-25. 


HARRINGTON  357 

Vandals,  Lombards,  Saxons,  which,  breaking  the  Roman  empire, 
deformed  the  whole  face  of  the  world  with  those  ill  features  of 
government,  which  at  this  time  are  become  far  worse  in  these 
Western  parts,  except  Venice,  which,  escaping  the  hands  of  the 
Barbarians  by  virtue  of  its  impregnable  situation,  has  had  its 
eye  fixed  upon  ancient  prudence,  and  is  attained  to  a  perfection 
even  beyond  the  copy. 

Relation  being  had  to  these  two  times,  government  (to  define 
it  de  jure,  or  according  to  ancient  prudence)  is  an  art  whereby  a 
civil  society  of  men  is  instituted  and  preserved  upon  the  founda- 
tion of  common  right  or  interest;  or,  to  follow  Aristotle  and  Livy, 
it  is  the  empire  of  laws,  and  not  of  men. 

And  government  (to  define  it  de  facto,  or  according  to  modern 
prudence)  is  an  art  whereby  some  man,  or  some  few  men,  subject 
a  city  or  a  nation,  and  rule  it  according  to  his  or  their  private 
interest;  which,  because  the  laws  in  such  cases  are  made  accord- 
ing to  the  interest  of  a  man,  or  of  some  few  families,  may  be  said 
to  be  the  empire  of  men,  and  not  of  laws. 

The  former  kind  is  that  which  Machiavel  (whose  books  are 
neglected)  is  the  only  politician  that  has  gone  about  to  retrieve; 
and  that  Leviathan  (who  would  have  his  book  imposed  upon  the 
universities)  goes  about  to  destroy.  For  "it  is,"  says  he,  "an- 
other error  of  Aristotle's  politics  that  in  a  well-ordered  common- 
wealth not  men  should  govern,  but  the  laws.  What  man  that 
has  his  natural  senses,  though  he  can  neither  write  nor  read, 
does  not  find  himself  governed  by  them  he  fears,  and  believes 
can  kill  or  hurt  him  when  he  obeys  not?  Or,  who  believes  that  < 
the  law  can  hurt  him,  which  is  but  words  and  paper,  without 
the  hands  and  swords  of  men?"  I  confess  that  the  magistrate 
upon  his  bencfyis  that  to  the  law  which  a  gunner  upon  his  plat- 
form is  to  his  cannon.  Nevertheless,  I  should  not  dare  to  argue 
with  a  man  of  any  ingenuity  after  this  manner.  A  whole  army, 
though  they  can  neither  write  nor  read,  are  not  afraid  of  a  plat- 
form, which  they  know  is  but  earth  or  stone;  nor  of  a  cannon, 
which,  without  a  hand  to  give  fire  to  it,  is  but  cold  iron;  therefore 
a  whole  army  is  afraid  of  one  man.  But  of  this  kind  is  the  ratio- 
cination of  Leviathan,  as  I  shall  show  in  divers  places  that  come 
in  my  way,  throughout  his  whole  politics,  or  worse;  as  where 
he  says,  of  Aristotle  and  of  Cicero,  of  the  Greeks,  and  of  the 
Romans,  who  lived  under  popular  states,  that  they  derived 
those  rights  not  from  the  principles  of  nature,  but  transcribed 
them  into  their  books  out  of  the  practice  of  their  own  common- 
wealths, as  grammarians  describe  the  rules  of  language  out  of 


358  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

poets.  Which  is  as  if  a  man  should  tell  famous  Harvey  that  he 
transcribed  his  circulation  of  the  blood  not  out  of  the  principles 
of  nature,  but  out  of  the  anatomy  of  this  or  that  body. 

To  go  on  therefore  with  his  preliminary  discourse,  I  shall 
divide  it,  according  to  the  two  definitions  of  government  relating 
to  Janotti's  two  times,  in  two  parts.  The  first,  treating  of  the 
principles  of  government  in  general,  and  according  to  the  ancients; 
the  second,  treating  of  the  late  governments  of  Oceana  in  par- 
ticular, and  in  that  of  modern  prudence. 

Government,  according  to  the  ancients,  and  their  learned 
disciple  Machiavel,  the  only  politician  of  later  ages,  is  of  three 
kinds:  the  government  of  one  man,  or  of  the  better  sort,  or  of 
the  whole  people;  which,  by  their  more  learned  names,  are  called 
monarchy,  aristocracy,  and  democracy.  These  they  hold, 
,  through  their  proneness  to  degenerate,  to  be  all  evil.  For  whereas 
\they  that  govern  should  govern  according  to  reason,  if  they 
'govern  according  to  passion  they  do  that  which  they  should 
•not  do.  Wherefore,  as  reason  and  passion  are  two  things,  so 
/government  by  reason  is  one  thing,  and  the  corruption  of  govern- 
^ment  by  passion  is  another  thing,  but  not  always  another  govern- 
ment: as  a  body  that  is  alive  is  one  thing,  and  a  body  that  is  dead 
is  another  thing,  but  not  always  another  creature,  though  the 
corruption  of  one  comes  at  length  to  be  the  generation  of  another. 
The  corruption  then  of  monarchy  is  called  tyranny;  that  of 
aristocracy,  oligarchy;  and  that  of  democracy,  anarchy.  But 
legislators,  having  found  these  three  governments  at  the  best  to 
be  naught,  have  invented  another,  consisting  of  a  mixture  of  them 
all,  which  only  is  good.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  ancients. 

But  Leviathan  is  positive  that  they  are  all  deceived,  and  that 
there  is  no  other  government  in  nature  than  one  of  the  three; 
as  also  that  the  flesh  of  them  cannot  stink,  the  names  of  their 
corruptions  being  but  the  names  of  men's  fancies,  which  will  be 
understood  when  we  are  shown  which  of  them  was  Senatus 
Populusque  Romanus. 

To  go  my  own  way,  and  yet  to  follow  the  ancients,  "the  prin- 
ciples of  government  are  twofold:  internal,  or  the  goods  of  the 
mind;  and  external,  or  the  goods  of  fortune.  The  goods  of 
the  mind  are  natural  or  acquired  virtues,  as  wisdom,  prudence, 
and  courage,  etc.  The  goods  of  fortune  are  riches.  There  be 
goods  also  of  the  body,  as  health,  beauty,  strength;  but  these 
'are  not  to  be  brought  into  account  upon  this  score,  because  if  a 
man  or  an  army  acquires  victory  or  empire,  it  is  more  from  their 
discipline,  arms,  and  courage  than  from  tftelrMiatural  health, 


HARRINGTON  3o. 

beauty,  or  strength,  in  regard  that  a  people  conquered  may 
have  more  of  natural  strength,  beauty  and  health,  and  yet  find 
little  remedy.  r  The  principles  of  government  then  are  in  the 
goods  of  the  mind,  or  in  the  goods  of  fortune.  To  the  goods 
of  the  mind  answers  authority;  to  the  goods  of  fortune,  power \\ 
or  empire.  •  Wherefore  Leviathan,  though  he  be  right  where  hei 
says  that  "riches  are  power,"  is  mistaken  where  he  says  that 
"prudence,  or  the  reputation  of  prudence,  is  power;"  for  the 
learning  or  prudence  of  a  man  is  no  more  power  than  the  learning 
or  prudence  of  a  book  or  author,  which  is  properly  authority. 
A  learned  writer  may  have  authority  though  he  has  no  power  ^ 
and  a  foolish  magistrate  may  have  power,  though  he  has  other4 
wise  no  esteem  or  authority.  The  difference  of  these  two  is 
observed  by  Livy  in  Evander,  of  whom  he  says  that  he  governed 
rather  by  the  authority  of  others  than  by  his  own  power. 

To  begin  with  riches,  in  regard  that  men  are  hung  upon  these, 
not  of  choice  as  upon  the  other,  but  of  necessity  and  by  the 
teeth;  forasmuch  as  he  who  wants  bread  is  his  servant  that 
will  feed  him,  if  a  man  thus  feeds  a  whole  people,  they  are  under 
his  empire. 

Empire  is  of  two  kinds,  domestic  and  national,  or  foreign  and 
provincial. 

Domestic  empire  is  founded  upon  dominion. 

Dominion  is  property,  real  or  personal;  that  is  to  say,  in  lands, 
or  in  money  and  goods. 

Lands,  or  the  parts  and  parcels  of  a  territory,  are  held  by  the 
proprietor  or  proprietors,  lord  or  lords  of  it,  in  some  proportion; 
and  such  (except  it  be  in  a  city  that  has  little  or  no  land,  and  whose 
revenue  is  in  trade)  as  is  the  proportion  or  balance  of  dominion 
or  property  in  land,  such  is  the  nature  of  the  empire. 

If  one  man  be  sole  landlord  of  a  territory,  or  overbalance  the 
people,  for  example,  three  parts  in  four,  he  is  Grand  Seignior;  for 
so  the  Turk  is  called  from  his  property,  and  his  empire  is  absolute 
monarchy. 

If  the  few  or  a  nobility,  or  a  nobility  with  a  clergy,  be  land- 
lords, or  overbalance  the  people  to  the  like  proportion,  it  makes 
the  Gothic  balance  (to  be  shown  at  large  in  the  second  part  of 
this  discourse),  and  the  empire  is  mixed  monarchy,  as  that  of 
Spain,  Poland,  and  late  of  Oceana. 

And  if  the  whole  people  be  landlords,  or  hold  the  lands  so 
divided  among  them  that  no  one  man,  or  number  of  men,  within 
the  compass  of  the  few  or  aristocracy,  overbalance  them,  the 
empire  (without  the  interposition  of  force)  is  a  commonwealth.  •' 


3*60  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

If  force  be  interposed  in  any  of  these  three  cases,  it  must 
either  frame  the  government  to  the  foundation,  or  the  foundation 
to  the  government;  or  holding  the  government  not  according  to 
the  balance,  it  is  not  natural,  but  violent;  and  therefore  if  it  be 
at  the  devotion  of  a  prince,  it  is  tyranny;  if  at  the  devotion  of 
the  few,  oligarchy;  or  if  in  the  power  of  the  people,  anarchy. 
Each  of  which  confusions,  the  balance  standing  otherwise,  is 
but  of  short  continuance,  because  against  the  nature  of  the 
balance,  which,  not  destroyed,  destroys  that  which  opposes  it. 

But  there  be  certain  other  confusions,  which,  being  rooted  in 
the  balance,  are  of  longer  continuance,  and  of  worse  consequence; 
as,  first,  where  a  nobility  holds  half  the  property,  or  about  that 
proportion,  and  the  people  the  other  half;  in  which  case,  without 
altering  the  balance  there  is  no  remedy  but  the  one  must  eat 
out  the  other,  as  the  people  did  the  nobility  in  Athens,  and  the 
nobility  the  people  in  Rome.  Secondly,  when  a  prince  holds  about 
half  the  dominion,  and  the  people  the  other  half  (which  was  the 
case  of  the  Roman  emperors,  planted  partly  upon  their  military 
colonies,  and  partly  upon  the  senate  and  the  people),  the  govern- 
ment becomes  a  very  shambles,  both  of  the  princes  and  the  people. 
Somewhat  of  this  nature  are  certain  governments  at  this  day, 
which  are  said  to  subsist  by  confusion.  In  this  case,  to  fix  the 
balance,  is  to  entail  misery;  but  in  the  three  former,  not  to  fix 
it,  is  to  lose  the  government.  Wherefore  it  being  unlawful  in 
Turkey  that  any  should  possess  land  but  the  Grand  Seignior, 
the  balance  is  fixed  by  the  law,  and  that  empire  firm.  Nor, 
though  the  kings  often  sell,  was  the  throne  of  Oceana  known  to 
shake,  until  the  statute  of  alienations  broke  the  pillars,  by  giving 
way  to  the  nobility  to  sell  their  estates.  While  Lacedsemon  held 
to  the  division  of  land  made  by  Lycurgus,  it  was  immovable; 
but,  breaking  that,  could  stand  no  longer.  This  kind  of  law 
fixing  the  balance  in  lands  is  called  Agrarian,  and  was  first  intro- 
duced by  God  himself,  who  divided  the  land  of  Canaan  to  His 
people  by  lots,  and  is  of  such  virtue,  that  wherever  it  has  held 
that  government  has  not  altered,  except  by  consent;  as  in  that 
unparalleled  example  of  the  people  of  Israel,  when  being  in  liberty 
.they  would  needs  choose  a  king.  But  without  an  agrarian  law, 

:  government,    whether   monarchical,    aristocratical,    or    popular, 

^has  no  long  lease. 

As  for  dominion,  personal  or  in  money,  it  may  now  and  then 
stir  up  a  Melius  or  a  Manlius,  which,  if  the  commonwealth  be 
not  provided  with  some  kind  of  dictatorian  power,  may  be 
dangerous,  though  it  has  been  seldom  or  never  successful;  because 


HARRINGTON  361 

to  property  producing  empire,  it  is  required  that  it  should  have 
some  certain  root  or  foothold,  which,  except  in  land,  it  cannot 
have,  being  otherwise  as  it  were  upon  the  wing. 

Nevertheless,  in  such  cities  as  subsist  mostly  by  trade,  and 
have  little  or  no  land,  as  Holland  and  Genoa,  the  balance  of 
treasure  may  be  equal  to  that  of  land  in  the  cases  mentioned. 

But  Leviathan,  though  he  seems  to  skew  at  antiquity,  follow- 
ing his  furious  master  Carneades,  has  caught  hold  of  the  public 
sword,  to  which  he  reduces  all  manner  and  matter  of  govern- 
ment ;  as,  where  he  affirms  this  opinion  [that  any  monarch  receives 
his  power  by  covenant,  that  is  to  say,  upon  conditions]  "to 
proceed  from  the  not  understanding  this  easy  truth,  that  covenants, 
being  but  words  and  breath,  have  no  power  to  oblige,  contain, ( 
constrain,  or  protect  any  man,  but  what  they  have  from  the 
public  sword."  But  as  he  said  of  the  law,  that  without  this  sword 
it  is  but  paper,  so  he  might  have  thought  of  this  sword,  that 
without  a  hand  it  is  but  cold  iron.  The  hand  which  holds  this 
sword  is  the  militia  of  a  nation;  and  the  militia  of  a  nation  is 
either  an  army  in  the  field,  or  ready  for  the  field  upon  occasion. 
But  an  army  is  a  beast  that  has  a  great  belly,  and  must  be  fed: 
wherefore  this  will  come  to  what  pastures  you  have,  and  what^ 
pastures  you  have  will  come  to  the  balance  of  property,  without  \ 
which  the  public  sword  is  but  a  name  or  mere  spitfrog.  Where-  * 
fore,  to  set  that  which  Leviathan  says  of  arms  and  of  contracts  a 
little  straighter,  he  that  can  graze  this  beast  with  the  great 
belly,  as  the  Turk  does  his  Timariots,  may  well  deride  him  that 
imagines  he  received  his  power  by  covenant,  or  is  obliged  to 
any  such  toy:  it  being  in  this  case  only  that  covenants  are  but 
words  and  breath.  But  if  the  property  of  the  nobility,  stocked 
with  their  tenants  and  retainers,  be  the  pasture  of  that  beast, 
the  ox  knows  his  master's  crib;  and  it  is  impossible  for  a  king 
in  such  a  constitution  to  reign  otherwise  than  by  covenant;  or 
if  he  break  it,  it  is  words  that  come  to  blows. 

"But,"  says  he,  "when  an  assembly  of  men  is  made  sovereign, 
then  no  man  imagines  any  such  covenant  to  have  part  in  the 
institution."  But  what  was  that  by  Publicola  of  appeal  to  the 
people,  or  that  whereby  the  people  had  their  tribunes?  "Fie," 
says  he,  "nobody  is  so  dull  as  to  say  that  the  people  of  Rome 
made  a  covenant  with  the  Romans,  to  hold  the  sovereignty  on 
such  or  such  conditions,  which,  not  performed,  the  Romans 
might  depose  the  Roman  people."  In  which  there  be  several 
remarkable  things;  for  he  holds  the  commonwealth  of  Rome  to 
have  consisted  of  one  assembly,  whereas  it  consisted  of  the 


362  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

senate  and  the  people;  that  they  were  not  upon  covenant,  whereas 
every  law  enacted  by  them  was  a  covenant  between  them;  that 
the  one  assembly  was  made  sovereign,  whereas  the  people,  who 
only  were  sovereign,  were  such  from  the  beginning,  as  appears 
by  the  ancient  style  of  their  covenants  or  laws — "The  senate  has 
resolved,  the  people  have  decreed;"  that  a  council  being  made 
sovereign,  cannot  be  made  such  upon  conditions,  whereas  the 
Decemvirs  being  a  council  that  was  made  sovereign,  was  made 
such  upon  conditions;  that  all  conditions  or  covenants  making 
a  sovereign,  the  sovereign  being  made,  are  void;  whence  it  must 
follow  that,  the  Decemviri  being  made,  were  ever  after  the 
lawful  government  of  Rome,  and  that  it  was  unlawful  for  the 
commonwealth  of  Rome  to  depose  the  Decemvirs;  as  also  that 
Cicero,  if  he  wrote  otherwise  out  of  his  commonwealth,  did  not 
write  out  of  nature.  But  to  come  to  others  that  see  more  of 
this  balance. 

You  have  Aristotle  full  of  it  in  divers  places,  especially  where 
he  says,  that  "immoderate  wealth,  as  where  one  man  or  the  few 
have  greater  possessions  than  the  equality  or  the  frame  of  the 
commonwealth  will  bear,  is  an  occasion  of  sedition,  which  ends 
for  the  greater  part  in  monarchy;  and  that  for  this  cause  the  os- 
tracism has  been  received  in  divers  places,  as  in  Argos  and  Athens. 
But  that  it  were  better  to  prevent  the  growth  in  the  beginning, 
than,  when  it  has  got  head,  to  seek  the  remedy  of  such  an  evil." 

Machiavel  has  missed  it  very  narrowly  and  more  dangerously; 
for,  not  fully  perceiving  that  if  a  commonwealth  be  galled  by  the 
gentry  it  is  by  their  overbalance,  he  speaks  of  the  gentry  as 
hostile  to  popular  governments,  and  of  popular  governments  as 
hostile  to  the  gentry;  and  makes  us  believe  that  the  people  in 
such  are  so  enraged  against  them,  that  where  they  meet  a  gentle- 
man they  kill  him;  which  can  never  be  proved  by  any  one  example, 
unless  in  civil  war,  seeing  that  even  in  Switzerland  the  gentry 
are  not  only  safe,  but  in  honor.  But  the  balance,  as  I  have  laid 
it  down,  though  unseen  by  Machiavel,  is  that  which  interprets 
him,  and  that  which  he  confirms  by  his  judgment  in  many  others 
as  well  as  in  this  place,  where  he  concludes,  ''That  he  who  will 
go  about  to  make  a  commonwealth  where  there  be  many  gentle- 
men, unless  he  first  destroys  them,  undertakes  an  impossibility. 
And  that  he  who  goes  about  to  introduce  monarchy  where  the 
condition  of  the  people  is  equal,  shall  never  bring  it  to  pass,  unless 
he  cull  out  such  of  them  as  are  the  most  turbulent  and  ambitious, 
and  make  them  gentlemen  or  noblemen,  not  in  name  but  in  effect; 
that  is,  by  enriching  them  with  lands,  castles  and  treasures,  that 


HARRINGTON  363 

may  gain  them  power  among  the  rest,  and  bring  in  the  rest  to 
dependence  upon  themselves,  to  the  end  that,  they  maintaining 
their  ambition  by  the  prince,  the  prince  may  maintain  his  power 
by  them." 

Wherefore,  as  in  this  place  I  agree  with  Machiavel,  that  a 
nobility  or  gentry,  overbalancing  a  popular  government,  is  the 
utter  bane  and  destruction  of  it;  so  I  shall  show  in  another,  that 
a  nobility  or  gentry,  in  a  popular  government,  not  overbalancing 
it,  is  the  very  life  and  soul  of  it. 

By  what  has  been  said,  it  should  seem  that  we  may  lay  aside 
further  disputes  of  the  public  sword,  or  of  the  right  of  the  militia; 
which,  be  the  government  what  it  will,  or  let  it  change  how  it  can, 
is  inseparable  from  the  overbalance  in  dominion:  nor,  if  otherwise 
stated  by  the  law  or  custom  (as  in  the  commonwealth  of  Rome, 
where  the  people  having  the  sword,  the  nobility  came  to  have 
the  overbalance),  avails  it  to  any  other  end  than  destruction. 
For  as  a  building  swaying  from  the  foundation  must  fall,  so  it 
fares  with  the  law  swaying  from  reason,  and  the  militia  from 
the  balance  of  dominion.  And  thus  much  for  the  balance  of 
national  or  domestic  empire,  which  is  in  dominion. 

The  balance  of  foreign  or  provincial  empire  is  of  a  contrary 
nature.  A  man  may  as  well  say  that  it  is  unlawful  for  him  who 
has  made  a  fair  and  honest  purchase  to  have  tenants,  as  for  a 
government  that  has  made  a  just  progress  and  enlargement  of 
itself  to  have  Drovinces.  But  how  a  province  may  be  justly 
acquired  appertains  to  another  place.  In  this  I  am  to  show  no 
more  than  how  or  upon  what  kind  of  balance  it  is  to  be  held; 
in  order  whereto  I  shall  first  show  upon  what  kind  of  balance  it 
is  not  to  be  held.  It  has  been  said,  that  national  or  independent 
empire,  of  what  kind  soever,  is  to  be  exercised  by  them  that 
have  the  proper  balance  of  dominion  in  the  nation;  wherefore 
provincial  or  dependent  empire  is  not  to  be  exercised  by  them 
that  have  the  balance  of  dominion  in  the  province,  because  that 
would  bring  the  government  from  provincial  and  dependent  to 
national  and  independent.  Absolute  monarchy,  as  that  of  the 
Turks,  neither  plants  its  people  at  home  nor  abroad,  otherwise 
than  as  tenants  for  life  or  at  will;  wherefore  its  national  and 
provincial  government  is  all  one.  But  in  governments  that 
admit  the  citizen  or  subject  to  dominion  in  lands,  the  richest 
are  they  that  share  most  of  the  power  at  home;  whereas  the 
richest  among  the  provincials,  though  native  subjects,  or  citizens 
that  have  been  transplanted,  are  least  admitted  to  the  govern- 
ment abroad;  for  men,  like  flowers  or  roots  being  transplanted, 


364  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

take  after  the  soil  wherein  they  grow.  Wherefore  the  common- 
wealth of  Rome,  by  planting  colonies  of  its  citizens  within  the 
bounds  of  Italy,  took  the  best  way  of  propagating  itself,  and 
naturalizing  the  country;  whereas  if  it  had  planted  such  colonies 
without  the  bounds  of  Italy,  it  would  have  alienated  the  citizens, 
and  given  root  to  liberty  abroad,  that  might  have  sprung  up 
foreign  or  savage,  and  hostile  to  her:  wherefore  it  never  made 
any  such  dispersion  of  itself  and  its  strength,  till  it  was  under 
the  yoke  of  the  Emperors,  who,  disburdening  themselves  of  the 
people,  as  having  less  apprehension  of  what  they  could  do  abroad 
than  at  home,  took  a  contrary  course. 

The  Mamalukes  (which,  till  any  man  show  me  the  contrary,  I 
shall  presume  to  have  been  a  commonwealth  consisting  of  an 
army,  whereof  the  common  soldier  was  the  people,  the  com- 
mission officer  the  senate,  and  the  general  the  prince)  were 
foreigners,  and  by  nation  Circassians,  that  governed  Egypt, 
wherefore  these  never  durst  plant  themselves  upon  dominion, 
which  growing  naturally  up  into  the  national  interest,  must  have 
dissolved  the  foreign  yoke  in  that  province. 

The  like  in  some  sort  may  be  said  of  Venice,  the  government 
whereof  is  usually  mistaken;  for  Venice,  though  it  does  not  take 
in  the  people,  never  excluded  them.  This  commonwealth,  the 
orders  whereof  are  the  most  democratical  or  popular  of  all  others, 
in  regard  of  the  exquisite  rotation  of  the  senate,  at  the  first 
institution  took  in  the  whole  people;  they  that  now  live  under 
the  government  without  participation  in  it,  are  such  as  have 
since  either  voluntarily  chosen  so  to  do,  or  were  subdued  by  arms. 
Wherefore  the  subject  of  Venice  is  governed  by  provinces,  and  the 
balance  of  dominion  not  standing,  as  has  been  said,  with  pro- 
vincial government;  as  the  Mamalukes  durst  not  cast  their 
government  upon  this  balance  in  their  provinces,  lest  the  national 
interest  should  have  rooted  out  the  foreign,  so  neither  dare  the 
Venetians  take  in  their  subjects  upon  this  balance,  lest  the  foreign 
interest  should  root  out  the  national  (which  is  that  of  the  three 
thousand  now  governing),  and  by  diffusing  the  commonwealth 
throughout  her  territories,  lose  the  advantage  of  her  situation, 
by  which  in  great  part  it  subsists.  And  such  also  is  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Spaniard  in  the  Indies,  to  which  he  deputes  natives 
of  his  own  country,  not  admitting  the  Creoles  to  the  government 
of  those  provinces,  though  descended  from  Spaniards. 

But  if  a  prince  or  a  commonwealth  may  hold  a  territory  that 
is  foreign  in  this,  it  may  be  asked  why  he  may  not  hold  one 
that  is  native  in  like  manner?  To  which  I  answer,  because 


HARRINGTON  365 

he  can  hold  a  foreign  by  a  native  territory,  but  not  a  native  by 
a  foreign;  and  as  hitherto  I  have  shown  what  is  not  the  provincial 
balance,  so  by  this  answer  it  may  appear  what  it  is,  namely,  the 
overbalance  of  a  native  territory  to  a  foreign;  for  as  one  country 
balances  itself  by  the  distribution  of  property  according  to  the 
proportion  of  the  same,  so  one  country  overbalances  another 
by  advantage  of  divers  kinds.  For  example,  the  commonwealth 
of  Rome  overbalanced  her  provinces  by  the  vigor  of  a  more 
excellent  government  opposed  to  a  crazier;  or  by  a  more  exquisite 
militia  opposed  to  one  inferior  in  courage  or  discipline.  The  like 
was- that  of  the  Mamalukes,  being  a  hardy  people,  to  the  Egyp- 
tians that  were  a  soft  one.  And  the  balance  of  situation  is  in  this 
kind  of  wonderful  effect;  seeing  the  king  of  Denmark,  being  none 
of  the  most  potent  princes,  is  able  at  the  Sound  to  take  toll  of  the 
greatest;  and  as  this  king,  by  the  advantage  of  the  land,  can  make 
the  sea  tributary,  so  Venice,  by  the  advantage  of  the  sea,  in  whose 
arms  she  is  impregnable,  can  make  the  land  to  feed  her  Gulf. 
For  the  colonies  in  the  Indies,  they  are  yet  babes  that  cannot  live 
without  sucking  the  breasts  of  their  mother  cities,  but  such  as 
I  mistake  if  when  they  come  of  age  they  do  not  wean  themselves; 
which  causes  me  to  wonder  at  princes  that  delight  to  be  exhausted 
in  that  way.  And  so  much  for  the  principles  of  power,  whether 
national  or  provincial,  domestic  or  foreign;  being  such  as  are 
external,  and  founded  in  the  goods  of  fortune. 

2.    Principles  of  Political  Authority:   The  Psychological  Influences  * 

I  come  to  the  principles  of  authority,  which  are  internal,  and 
founded  upon  the  goods  of  the  mind.  These  the  legislator  that 
can  unite  in  his  government  with  those  of  fortune,  comes  nearest 
to  the  work  of  God,  whose  government  consists  of  heaven  and 
earth;  which  was  said  by  Plato,  though  in  different  words,  as, 
when  princes  should  be  philosophers,  or  philosophers  princes, 
the  world  would  be  happy.  And  says  Solomon:  "There  is  an 
evil  which  I  have  seen  under  the  sun,  which  proceeds  from  the 
ruler  [enimvero  neque  nobilem,  neque  ingenuum,  nee  libertinum 
quidem  armis  praeponere,  regia  utilitas  est].  Folly  is  set  in  great 
dignity,  and  the  rich  [either  in  virtue  and  wisdom,  in  the  goods 
of  the  mind,  or  those  of  fortune  upon  that  balance  which  gives 
them  a  sense  of  the  national  interest]  sit  in  low  places.  I  have 
seen  servants  upon  horses,  and  princes  walking  as  servants 
upon  the  earth."  Sad  complaints,  that  the  principles  of  power 

1  Pp.  25-29. 


366  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

and  of  authority,  the  goods  of  the  mind  and  of  fortune,  do  not 
meet  and  twine  in  the  wreath  or  crown  of  empire!  Wherefore,  if 
we  have  anything  of  piety  or  of  prudence,  let  us  raise  ourselves 
out  of  the  mire  of  private  interest  to  the  contemplation  of  virtue, 
and  put  a  hand  to  the  removal  of  "this  evil  from  under  the 
sun;"  this  evil  against  which  no  government  that  is  not  secured 
can  be  good;  this  evil  from  which  the  government  that  is  secure 
must  be  perfect.  Solomon  tells  us,  that  the  cause  of  it  is  from 
the  ruler,  from  those  principles  of  power,  which,  balanced  upon 
earthly  trash,  exclude  the  heavenly  treasures  of  virtue,  and  that 
influence  of  it  upon  government  which  is  authority.  We  have 
wandered  the  earth  to  find  out  the  balance  of  power;  but  to 
find  out  that  of  authority  we  must  ascend,  as  I  said,  nearer 
heaven,  or  to  the  image  of  God,  which  is  the  soul  of  man. 

The  soul  of  man  (whose  life  or  motion  is  perpetual  contempla- 
tion or  thought)  is  the  mistress  of  two  potent  rivals,  the  one 
reason,  the  other  passion,  that  are  in  continual  suit;  and,  accord- 
ing as  she  gives  up  her  will  to  these  or  either  of  them,  is  the 
felicity  or  misery  which  man  partakes  in  this  mortal  life. 

For,  as  whatever  was  passion  in  the  contemplation  of  a  man, 
being  brought  forth  by  his  will  into  action,  is  vice  and  the  bond- 
age of  sin;  so  whatever  was  reason  in  the  contemplation  of  a 
man,  being  brought  forth  by  his  will  into  action,  is  virtue  and 
the  freedom  of  soul. 

Again,  as  those  actions  of  a  man  that  were  sin  acquire  to 
himself  repentance  or  shame,  and  affect  others  with  scorn  or 
pity,  so  those  actions  of  a  man  that  are  virtue  acquire  to  himself 
honor,  and  upon  others  authority. 

Now  government  is  no  other  than  the  soul  of  a  nation  or  city : 
wherefore  that  which  was  reason  in  the  debate  of  a  common- 
wealth being  brought  forth  by  the  result,  must  be  virtue;  and 
forasmuch  as  the  soul  of  a  city  or  nation  is  the  sovereign  power, 
her  virtue  must  be  law.  But  the  government  whose  law  is  virtue, 
and  whose  virtue  is  law,  is  the  same  whose  empire  is  authority, 
and  whose  authority  is  empire. 

Again,  if  the  liberty  of  a  man  consists  in  the  empire  of  his 
reason,  the  absence  whereof  would  betray  him  to  the  bondage 
of  his  passions,  then  the  liberty  of  a  commonwealth  consists  in 
the  empire  of  her  laws,  the  absence  whereof  would  betray  her  to 
the  lust  of  tyrants.  And  these  I  conceive  to  be  the  principles 
upon  which  Aristotle  and  Livy  (injuriously  accused  by  Leviathan 
for  not  writing  out  of  nature)  have  grounded  their  assertion, 
"that  a  commonwealth  is  an  empire  of  laws  and  not  of  men." 


HARRINGTON  367 

But  they  must  not  carry  it  so.  "For,"  says  he,  "the  liberty, 
whereof  there  is  so  frequent  and  honorable  mention  in  the 
histories  and  philosophy  of  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans, 
and  the  writings  and  discourses  of  those  that  from  them  have 
received  all  their  learning  in  the  politics,  is  not  the  liberty  of 
particular  men,  but  the  liberty  of  the  commonwealth."  He 
might  as  well  have  said  that  the  estates  of  particular  men  in  a 
commonwealth  are  not  the  riches  of  particular  men,  but  the 
riches  of  the  commonwealth;  for  the  equality  of  estates  causes 
equality  of  power,  and  equality  of  power  is  the  liberty,  not  only 
of  the  commonwealth,  but  of  every  man.'  But  sure  a  man 
would  never  be  thus  irreverent  with  the  greatest  authors,  and 
positive  against  all  antiquity,  without  some  certain  demonstration 
of  truth — and  what  is  it?  Why,  "there  is  written  on  the  turrets 
of  the  city  of  Lucca  in  great  characters  at  this  day  the  word 
LIBERTAS;  yet  no  man  can  thence  infer  that  a  particular  man 
has  more  liberty  or  immunity  from  the  service  of  the  common- 
wealth there  than  in  Constantinople.  Whether  a  commonwealth 
be  monarchical  or  popular,  the  freedom  is  the  same."  The 
mountain  has  brought  forth,  and  we  have  a  little  equivocation! 
For  to  say  that  a  Lucchese  has  no  more  liberty  or  immunity 
from  the  laws  of  Lucca  than  a  Turk  has  from  those  of  Constan- 
tinople; and  to  say  that  a  Lucchese  has  no  more  liberty  or  im- 
munity by  the  laws  of  Lucca,  than  a  Turk  has  by  those  of  Con- 
stantinople, are  pretty  different  speeches.  The  first  may  be  said 
of  all  governments  alike;  the  second  scarce  of  any  two;  much  less 
of  these,  seeing  it  is  known  that,  whereas  the  greatest  Bashaw 
is  a  tenant,  as  well  of  his  head  as  of  his  estate,  at  the  will  of  his 
lord,  the  meanest  Lucchese  that  has  land  is  a  freeholder  of  both, 
and  not  to  be  controlled  but  by  the  law,  and  that  framed  by  every 
private  man  to  no  other  end  (or  they  may  thank  themselves) 
than  to  protect  the  liberty  of  every  private  man,  which  by  that 
means  comes  to  be  the  liberty  of  the  commonwealth. 

But  seeing  they  that  make  the  laws  in  commonwealths  are 
but  men,  the  main  question  seems  to  be,  how  a  commonwealth 
comes  to  be  an  empire  of  laws,  and  not  of  men?  Or  how  the 
debate  or  result  of  a  commonwealth  is  so  sure  to  be  according 
to  reason;  seeing  they  who  debate,  and  they  who  resolve,  be 
but  men?  "And  as  often  as  reason  is  against  a  man,  so  often 
will  a  man  be  against  reason." 

This  is  thought  to  be  a  shrewd  saying,  but  will  do  no  harm; 
for  be  it  so  that  reason  is  nothing  but  interest,  there  be  divers 
interests,  and  so  divers  reasons. 


368  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

As  first,  there  is  private  reason,  which  is  the  interest  of  a 
private  man. 

Secondly,  there  is  a  reason  of  state,  which  is  the  interest  (or 
error,  as  was  said  by  Solomon)  of  the  ruler  or  rulers,  that  is  to 
say,  of  the  prince,  of  the  nobility,  or  of  the  people. 

Thirdly,  there  is  that  reason,  which  is  the  interest  of  man- 
kind, or  of  the  whole.  "Now  if  we  see  even  in  those  natural 
agents  that  want  sense,  that  as  in  themselves  they  have  a  law 
which  directs  them  in  the  means  whereby  they  tend  to  their 
own  perfection,  so  likewise  that  another  law  there  is,  which 
touches  them  as  they  are  sociable  parts  united  into  one  body,  a 
law  which  binds  them  each  to  serve  to  others'  good,  and  all  to 
prefer  the  good  of  the  whole,  before  whatsoever  their  own  par- 
ticular; as  when  stones,  or  heavy  things,  forsake  their  ordinary 
wont  or  centre,  and  fly  upwards,  as  if  they  heard  themselves 
commanded  to  let  go  the  good  they  privately  wish,  and  to  relieve 
the  present  distress  of  nature  in  common."  There  is  a  common 
right,  law  of  nature,  or  interest  of  the  whole,  which  is  more 
excellent,  and  so  acknowledged  to  be  by  the  agents  themselves, 
than  the  right  or  interest  of  the  parts  only.  "  Wherefore,  though 
it  may  be  truly  said  that  the  creatures  are  naturally  carried 
forth  to  their  proper  utility  or  profit,  that  ought  not  to  be  taken 
in  too  general  a  sense;  seeing  divers  of  them  abstain  from  their 
own  profit,  either  in  regard  of  those  of  the  same  kind,  or  at  least 
of  their  young." 

Mankind  then  must  either  be  less  just  than  the  creature,  or 
acknowledge  also  his  common  interest  to  be  common  right. 
And  if  reason  be  nothing  else  but  interest,  and  the  interest  of 
mankind  be  the  right  interest,  then  the  reason  of  mankind  must 
be  right  reason.  Now  compute  well;  for  if  the  interest  of  popular 
government  come  the  nearest  to  the  interest  of  mankind,  then 
the  reason  of  popular  government  must  come  the  nearest  to  right 
reason. 

But  it  may  be  said  that  the  difficulty  remains  yet;  for  be  the 
interest  of  popular  government  right  reason,  a  man  does  not 
look  upon  reason  as  it  is  right  or  wrong  in  itself,  but  as  it  makes 
for  him  or  against  him.  Wherefore,  unless  you  can  show  such 
orders  of  a  government  as,  like  those  of  God  in  nature,  shall 
be  able  to  constrain  this  or  that  creature  to  shake  off  that  in- 
clination which  is  more  peculiar  to  it,  and  take  up  that  which 
regards  the  common  good  or  interest,  all  this  is  to  no  more  end 
than  to  persuade  every  man  in  a  popular  government  not  to 
carve  himself  of  that  which  he  desires  most,  but  to  be  mannerly 


HARRINGTON  369 

at  the  public  table,  ,and  give  the  best  from  himself  to  decency 
and  the  common  interest.  But  that  such  orders  may  be  estab- 
lished as  may,  nay  must,  give  the  upper  hand  in  all  cases  to 
common  right  or  interest,  notwithstanding  the  nearness  of  that 
which  sticks  to  every  man  in  private,  and  this  in  a  way  of  equal 
certainty  and  facility,  is  known  even  to  girls,  being  no  other  than 
those  that  are  of  common  practice  with  them  in  divers  cases. 
For  example,  two  of  them  have  a  cake  yet  undivided,  which 
was  given  between  them,  that  each  of  them  therefore  might  have 
that  which  is  due:  "divide,"  says  one  to  the  other,  "and  I  will 
choose;  or  let  me  divide,  and  you  shall  choose."  If  this  be 
but  once  agreed  upon,  it  is  enough;  for  the  divident,  dividing 
unequally,  loses,  in  regard  that  the  other  takes  the  better  half; 
wherefore  she  divides  equally,  and  so  both  have  right.  "O  the 
depth  of  the  wisdom  of  God!"  and  yet  "by  the  mouths  of  babes 
and  sucklings  has  He  set  forth  His  strength;"  that  which  great 
philosophers  are  disputing  upon  in  vain,  is  brought  to  light 
by  two  harmless  girls,  even  the  whole  mystery  of  a  commonwealth, 
which  lies  only  in  dividing  and  choosing.  Nor  has  God  (if 
His  works  in  nature  be  understood)  left  so  much  to  mankind 
to  dispute  upon  as  who  shall  divide  and  who  choose,  but  distributed 
them  for  ever  into  two  orders,  whereof  the  one  has  the  natural 
right  of  dividing,  and  the  other  of  choosing. 

3.     Principles  of  Political  Authority:  The  Essential  Organs 
of  Government l 

A  commonwealth  is  but  a  civil  society  of  men:  let  us  take  any 
number  of  men  (as  twenty)  and  immediately  make  a  common- 
wealth. Twenty  men  (if  they  be  not  all  idiots,  perhaps  if  they  be) 
can  never  come  so  together  but  there  will  be  such  a  difference 
in  them,  that  about  a  third  will  be  wiser,  or  at  least  less  foolish 
than  all  the  rest;  these  upon  acquaintance,  though  it  be  but 
small,  will  be  discovered,  and,  as  stags  that  have  the  largest 
heads,  lead  the  herd;  for  while  the  six,  discoursing  and  arguing 
one  with  another,  show  the  eminence  of  their  parts,  the  fourteen 
discover  things  that  they  never  thought  on;  or  are  cleared  in 
divers  truths  which  had  formerly  perplexed  them.  Wherefore, 
in  matter  of  common  concernment,  difficulty,  or  danger,  they 
hang  upon  their  lips,  as  children  upon  their  fathers;  and  the 
influence  thus  acquired  by  the  six,  the  eminence  of  whose  parts 
are  found  to  be  a  stay  and  comfort  to  the  fourteen,  is  the  au- 

ipp.  29-31,  35-37. 


370  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

thority  of  the  fathers.  Wherefore  this  can  be  no  other  than  a 
natural  aristocracy  diffused  by  God  throughout  the  whole  body 
of  mankind  to  this  end  and  purpose;  and  therefore  such  as  the 
people  have  not  only  a  natural  but  a  positive  obligation  to  make 
use  of  as  their  guides;  as  where  the  people  of  Israel  are  com- 
manded to  "take  wise  men,  and  understanding,  and  known 
among  their  tribes,  to  be  made  rulers  over  them."  The  six  then 
approved  of,  as  in  the  present  case,  are  the  senate,  not  by  heredi- 
tary right,  or  in  reagrd  of  the  greatness  of  their  estates  only, 
which  would  tend  to  such  power  as  might  force  or  draw  the 
people,  but  by  election  for  their  excellent  parts,  which  tends  to 
the  advancement  of  the  influence  of  their  virtue  or  authority 
that  leads  the  people.  Wherefore  the  office  of  the  senate  is  not 
to  be  commanders,  but  counsellors  of  the  people;  and  that  which 
is  proper  to  counsellors  is  first  to  debate,  and  afterward  to  give 
advice  in  the  business  whereupon  they  have  debated,  whence 
the  decrees  of  the  senate  are  never  laws,  nor  so  called;  and  these 
being  maturely  framed,  it  is  their  duty  to  propose  in  the  case 
to  the  people.  Wherefore  the  senate  is  no  more  than  the  debate 
of  the  commonwealth.  But  to  debate,  is  to  discern  or  put  a  differ- 
ence between  things  that,  being  alike,  are  not  the  same;  or  it  is 
separating  and  weighing  this  reason  against  that,  and  that  reason 
against  this,  which  is  dividing. 

The  senate  then  having  divided,  who  shall  choose?  Ask  the 
girls:  for  if  she  that  divided  must  have  chosen  also,  it  had  been 
little  worse  for  the  other  in  case  she  had  not  divided  at  all,  but 
kept  the  whole  cake  to  herself,  in  regard  that  being  to  choose  too 
she  divided  accordingly.  Wherefore  if  the  senate  have  any  farther 
power  than  to  divide,  the  commonwealth  can  never  be  equal. 
But  in  a  commonwealth  consisting  of  a  single  council,  there  is 
no  other  to  choose  than  that  which  divided;  whence  it  is,  that 
such  a  council  fails  not  to  scramble — that  is,  to  be  factious,  there 
being  no  other  dividing  of  the  cake  in  that  case  but  among  them- 
selves. 

Nor  is  there  any  remedy  but  to  have  another  council  to  choose. 
The  wisdom  of  the  few  may  be  the  light  of  mankind;  but  the 
interest  of  the  few  is  not  the  profit  of  mankind,  nor  of  a  common- 
wealth. Wherefore,  seeing  we  have  granted  interest  to  be  reason, 
they  must  not  choose  lest  it  put  out  their  light.  But  as  the 
council  dividing  consists  of  the  wisdom  of  the  commonwealth,  so 
the  assembly  or  council  choosing  should  consist  of  the  interest 
of  the  commonwealth:  as  the  wisdom  of  the  commonwealth  is 
in  the  aristocracy,  so  t"ie  interest  of  the  commonwealth  is  in  the 


HARRINGTON  371 

whole  body  of  the  people.  And  whereas  this,  in  case  the  com- 
monwealth consist  of  a  whole  nation,  is  too  unwieldy  a  body 
to  be  assembled,  this  council  is  to  consist  of  such  a  representa- 
tive as  may  be  equal,  and  so  constituted,  as  can  never  contract 
any  other  interest  than  that  of  the  whole  people;  the  manner 
whereof,  being  such  as  is  best  shown  by  exemplification,  I  remit 
to  the  model.  But  in  the  present  case,  the  six  dividing,  and  the 
fourteen  choosing,  must  of  necessity  take  in  the  whole  interest 
of  the  twenty. 

Dividing  and  choosing  in  the  language  of  a  commonwealth  is 
debating  and  resolving;  and  whatsoever,  upon  debate  of  the 
senate,  is  proposed  to  the  people,  and  resolved  by  them,  is  enacted 
by  the  authority  of  the  fathers,  and  by  the  power  of  the  people, 
which  concurring,  make  a  law. 

But  the  law  being  made,  says  Leviathan,  "is  but  words  and 
paper  without  the  hands  and  swords  of  men;"  wherefore  as 
these  two  orders  of  a  commonwealth,  namely,  the  senate  and  the 
people,  are  legislative,  so  of  necessity  there  must  be  a  third  to  be 
executive  of  the  laws  made,  and  this  is  the  magistracy:  in  which 
order,  with  the  rest  being  wrought  up  by  art,  the  commonwealth 
consists  of  "the  senate  proposing,  the  people  resolving,  and  the 
magistracy  executing;"  whereby  partaking  of  the  aristocracy 
as  in  the  senate,  of  the  democracy  as  in  the  people,  and  of  mon- 
archy as  in  the  magistracy,  it  is  complete.  Now  there  being  no 
other  commonwealth  but  this  in  art  or  nature,  it  is  no  wonder  if 
Machiavel  has  shown  us  that  the  ancients  held  this  only  to  be 
good;  but  it  seems  strange  to  me  that  they  should  hold  that  there 
could  be  any  other:  for  if  there  be  such  a  thing  as  pure  monarchy, 
yet  that  there  should  be  such  a  one  as  pure  aristocracy,  or  pure 
democracy,  is  not  in  my  understanding.  But  the  magistracy, 
both  in  number  and  function,  is  different  in  different  common- 
wealths. Nevertheless  there  is  one  condition  of  it  that  must  be 
the  same  in  every  one,  or  it  dissolves  the  commonwealth  where  it 
is  wanting.  And  this  is  no  less  than  that,  as  the  hand  of  the 
magistrate  is  the  executive  power  of  the  law,  so  the  head  of  the 
magistrate  is  answerable  to  the  people,  that  his  execution  be 
according  to  the  law;  by  which  Leviathan  may  see  that  the  hand 
or  sword  that  executes  the  law  is  in  it  and  not  above  it. 

Athens  consisted  of  the  senate  of  the  Bean  proposing,  of  the 
church  or  assembly  of  the  people  resolving,  and  too  often  de- 
bating, which  was  the  ruin  of  it;  as  also  of  the  senate  of  the 
Areopagists,  the  nine  archons,  with  divers  other  magistrates, 
executing. 


372  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Lacedaemon  consisted  of  the  senate  proposing,  of  the  church 
or  congregation  of  the  people  resolving  only,  and  never  debating, 
which  was  the  long  life  of  it;  and  of  the  two  kings,  the  court  of 
the  ephors,  with  divers  other  magistrates,  executing. 

Carthage  consisted  of  the  senate  proposing  and  sometimes  resolv- 
ing too,  of  the  people  resolving  and  sometimes  debating  too,  for 
which  fault  she  was  reprehended  by  Aristotle;  and  she  had  her 
sujfetes,  and  her  hundred  men,  with  other  magistrates,  executing. 

Rome  consisted  of  the  senate  proposing,  the  concio  or  people 
resolving,  and  too  often  debating,  which  caused  her  storms;  as 
also  of  the  consuls,  censors,  aediles,  tribunes,  praetors,  quaestors 
and  other  magistrates,  executing. 

Venice  consists  of  the  senate  or  pregati  proposing,  and  some- 
times resolving  too,  of  the  great  council  or  assembly  of  the  people, 
in  whom  the  result  is  constitutively;  as  also  of  the  doge,  the 
signory,  the  censors,  the  died,  the  quazancies1,  and  other  magis- 
trates, executing. 

The  proceeding  of  the  commonwealths  of  Switzerland  and 
Holland  is  of  a  like  nature,  though  after  a  more  obscure  manner; 
for  the  sovereignties,  whether  cantons,  provinces,  or  cities, 
which  are  the  people,  send  their  deputies,  commissioned  and 
instructed  by  themselves  (wherein  they  reserve  the  result  in 
their  own  power),  to  the  provincial  or  general  convention,  or 
senate,  where  the  deputies  debate,  but  have  no  other  power  of 
result  than  what  was  conferred  upon  them  by  the  people,  or  is 
further  conferred  by  the  same  upon  further  occasion.  And  for 
the  executive  part  they  have  magistrates  or  judges  in  every 
canton,  province  or  city,  besides  those  which  are  more  public, 
and  relate  to  the  league,  as  for  adjusting  controversies  between 
one  canton,  province  or  city,  and  another,  or  the  like  between 
such  persons  as  are  not  of  the  same  canton,  province  or  city. 

But  that  we  may  observe  a  little  further  how  the  heathen 
politicians  have  written,  not  only  out  of  nature,  but  as  it  were 
out  of  Scripture:  as  in  the  commonwealth  of  Israel,  God  is  said 
to  have  been  king,  so  the  commonwealth  where  the  law  is  king, 
is  said  by  Aristotle  to  be  "the  kingdom  of  God."  And  where  by 
the  lusts  or  passions  of  men  a  power  is  set  above  that  of  the  law 
deriving  from  reason,  which  is  the  dictate  of  God,  God  in  that 
sense  is  rejected  or  deposed  that  He  should  not  reign  over  them, 
as  He  was  in  Israel.  And  yet  Leviathan  will  have  it,  that  "by 
reading  of  these  Greek  and  Latin  (he  might  as  well  in  this  sense 
have  said  Hebrew)  authors,  young  men,  and  all  others  that  are 

i  Died—11  the  ten  ";  quazancies — "  the  forty." 


HARRINGTON  373 

unprovided  of  the  antidote  of  solid  reason,  receiving  a  strong  and 
delightful  impression  of  the  great  exploits  of  war  achieved  by 
the  conductors  of  their  armies,  receive  withal  a  pleasing  idea 
of  all  they  have  done  besides,  and  imagine  their  great  prosperity 
not  to  have  proceeded  from  the  emulation  of  particular  men, 
but  from  the  virtue  of  their  popular  form  of  government,  not 
considering  the  frequent  seditions  and  civil  wars  produced  by 
the  imperfection  of  their  polity."  Where,  first,  the  blame  he 
lays  to  the  heathen  authors,  is  in  his  sense  laid  to  the  Scripture; 
and  whereas  he  holds  them  to  be  young  men,  or  men  of  no  anti- 
dote that  are  of  like  opinions,  it  should  seem  that  Machiavel, 
the  sole  retriever  of  this  ancient  prudence,  is  to  his  solid  reason  a 
beardless  boy  that  has  newly  read  Livy.  And  how  solid  his 
reason  is,  may  appear  where  he  grants  the  great  prosperity  of 
ancient  commonwealths,  which  is  to  give  up  the  controversy. 
For  such  an  effect  must  have  some  adequate  cause,  which  to  evade 
he  insinuates  that  it  was  nothing  else  but  the  emulation  of  par- 
ticular men,  as  if  so  great  an  emulation  could  have  been  generated 
without  as  great  virtue,  so  great  virtue  without  the  best  education, 
and  best  education  without  the  best  law,  or  the  best  laws  any 
otherwise  than  by  the  excellency  of  their  polity. 

But  if  some  of  these  commonwealths,  as  being  less  perfect  in 
their  polity  than  others,  have  been  more  seditious,  it  is  not  more 
an  argument  of  the  infirmity  of  this  or  that  commonwealth  in 
particular,  than  of  the  excellency  of  that  kind  of  polity  in  general, 
which  if  they  that  have  not  altogether  reached,  have  never- 
theless had  greater  prosperity,  what  would  befall  them  that  should 
reach? 

4.     Principles  of  Political  Authority:  Institutions  for  Safe-guarding 

the  State  l 

By  what  has  been  shown  in  reason  and  experience,  it  may 
appear,  that  though  commonwealths  in  general  be  governments 
of  the  senate  proposing,  the  people  resolving,  and  the  magistracy 
executing,  yet  some  are  not  so  good  at  these  orders  as  others, 
through  some  impediment  or  defect  in  the  frame,  balance,  or 
capacity  of  them,  according  to  which  they  are  of  divers  kinds. 

The  first  division  of  them  is  into  such  as  are  single,  as  Israel, 
Athens,  Lacedasmon,  etc.;  and  such  as  are  by  leagues,  as  those 
of  the  Achasans,  ^Etolians,  Lycians,  Switz,  and  Hollanders. 

The  second  (being  Machiavel's)  is  into  such  as  are  for  pres- 

1  Pp.  39-44. 


374  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

ervation,  as  Lacedaemon  and  Venice,  and  such  as  are  for  in- 
crease, as  Athens  and  Rome;  in  which  I  can  see  no  more 
than  that  the  former  takes  in  no  more  citizens  than  are 
necessary  for  defence,  and  the  latter  so  many  as  are  capable  of 
increase. 

The  third  division  (unseen  hitherto)  is  into  equal  and  unequal, 
and  this  is  the  main  point,  especially  as  to  domestic  peace  and 
tranquillity;  for  to  make  a  commonwealth  unequal,  is  to  divide 
it  into  parties,  which  sets  them  at  perpetual  variance,  the  one 
party  endeavoring  to  preserve  their  eminence  and  inequality, 
and  the  other  to  attain  to  equality;  whence  the  people  of  Rome 
derived  their  perpetual  strife  with  the  nobility  and  senate.  But 
in  an  equal  commonwealth  there  can  be  no  more  strife  than 
there  can  be  overbalance  in  equal  weights;  wherefore  the  common- 
wealth of  Venice,  being  that  which  of  all  others  is  the  most  equal 
in  the  constitution,  is  that  wherein  there  never  happened  any 
strife  between  the  senate  and  the  people. 

An  equal  commonwealth  is  such  a  one  as  is  equal  both  in  the 
balance  or  foundation,  and  in  the  superstructure;  that  is  to  say, 
in  her  agrarian  law,  and  in  her  rotation. 

An  equal  agrarian  is  a  perpetual  law,  establishing  and  pre- 
serving the  balance  of  dominion  by  such  a  distribution,  that  no 
one  man  or  number  of  men,  within  the  compass  of  the  few  or 
aristocracy,  can  come  to  overpower  the  whole  people  by  their 
possessions  in  lands. 

As  the  agrarian  answers  to  the  foundation,  so  does  rotation 
to  the  superstructures. 

Equal  rotation  is  equal  vicissitude  in  government,  or  succes- 
sion to  magistracy  conferred  for  such  convenient  terms,  enjoying 
equal  vacations,  as  take  in  the  whole  body  by  parts,  succeeding 
others,  through  the  free  election  or  suffrage  of  the  people. 

The  contrary,  whereunto  is  prolongation  of  magistracy,  which, 
trashing  the  wheel  of  rotation,  destroys  the  life  or  natural  motion 
of  a  commonwealth. 

The  election  or  suffrage  of  the  people  is  most  free  where  it  is 
made  or  given  in  such  a  manner  that  it  can  neither  oblige  nor 
disoblige  another,  nor  through  fear  of  an  enemy,  or  bashfulness 
towards  a  friend,  impair  a  man's  liberty. 

Wherefore,  says  Cicero,  the  tablet  or  ballot  of  the  people  of 
Rome  (who  gave  their  votes  by  throwing  tablets  or  little  pieces 
of  wood  secretly  into  urns  marked  for  the  negative  or  affirma- 
tive) was  a  welcome  constitution  to  the  people,  as  that  which, 
not  impairing  the  assurance  of  their  brows,  increased  the  free- 


HARRINGTON  375 

dom  of  their  judgment.  I  have  not  stood  upon  a  more  particu- 
lar description  of  this  ballot,  because  that  of  Venice  exemplified 
in  the  model  is  of  all  others  the  most  perfect. 

An  equal  commonwealth  (by  that  which  has  been  said)  is  a 
government  established  upon  an  equal  agrarian,  arising  into 
the  superstructures  or  three  orders,  the  senate  debating  and 
proposing,  the  people  resolving,  and  the  magistracy  executing, 
by  an  equal  rotation  through  the  suffrage  of  the  people  given  by 
the  ballot.  For  though  rotation  may  be  without  the  ballot,  and 
the  ballot  without  rotation,  yet  the  ballot  not  only  as  to  the 
ensuing  model  includes  both,  but  is  by  far  the  most  equal  way; 
for  which  cause  under  the  name  of  the  ballot  I  shall  hereafter 
understand  both  that  and  rotation  too. 

Now  having  reasoned  the  principles  of  an  equal  common- 
wealth, I  should  come  to  give  an  instance  of  such  a  one  in  ex- 
perience, if  I  could  find  it;  but  if  this  work  be  of  any  value,  it 
lies  in  that  it  is  the  first  example  of  a  commonwealth  that  is 
perfectly  equal.  For  Venice,  though  it  comes  the  nearest,  yet  is 
a  commonwealth  for  preservation;  and  such  a  one,  considering 
the  paucity  of  citizens  taken  in,  and  the  number  not  taken  in,  is 
externally^unequal;  and  though  every  commonwealth  that  holds 
provinces  must  in  that  regard  be  such,  yet  not  to  that  degree. 
Nevertheless,  Venice  internally,  and  for  her  capacity,  is  by  far  the 
most  equal,  though  it  has  not,  in  my  judgment,  arrived  at  the 
full  perfection  of  equality;  both  because  her  laws  supplying  the 
defect  of  an  agrarian,  are  not  so  clear  nor  effectual  at  the  founda- 
tion, nor  her  superstructures,  by  the  virtue  of  her  ballot  or  rota- 
tion, exactly  librated;  in  regard  that  through  the  paucity  of  her 
citizens  her  greater  magistracies  are  continually  wheeled  through 
a  few  hands.  .  .  .  Wherefore  if  this  in  Venice,  or  that  in  Lace- 
daemon,  where  the  kings  were  hereditary,  and  the  senators  (though 
elected  by  the  people)  for  life,  cause  no  inequality  (which  is  hard  to 
be  conceived)  in  a  commonwealth  for  preservation,  or  such  a  one 
as  consists  of  a  few  citizens;  yet  is  it  manifest  that  it  would  cause 
a  very  great  one  in  a  commonwealth  for  increase,  or  consisting 
of  the  many,  which,  by  engrossing  the  magistracies  in  a  few  hands, 
would  be  obstructed  in  their  rotation. 

But  there  be  who  say  (and  think  it  a  strong  objection)  that,  let 
a  commonwealth  be  as  equal  as  you  can  imagine,  two  or  three 
men  when  all  is  done  will  govern  it;  and  there  is  that  in  it  which, 
notwithstanding  the  pretended  sufficiency  of  a  popular  state, 
amounts  to  a  plain  confession  of  the  imbecility  of  that  policy, 
and  of  the  prerogative  of  monarchy;  forasmuch  as  popular  gov- 


376  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

ernments  in  difficult  cases  have  had  recourse  to  dictatorial!  power, 
as  in  Rome. 

To  which  I  answer,  that  as  truth  is  a  spark  to  which  objec- 
tions are  like  bellows,  so  in  this  respect  our  commonwealth 
shines;  for  the  eminence  acquired  by  suffrage  of  the  people  in 
a  commonwealth,  especially  if  it  be  popular  and  equal,  can  be 
ascended  by  no  other  steps  than  the  universal  acknowledgment 
of  virtue:  and  where  men  excel  in  virtue,  the  commonwealth  is 
stupid  and  unjust,  if  accordingly  they  do  not  excel  in  authority. 
Wherefore  this  is  both  the  advantage  of  virtue,  which  has  her 
due  encouragement,  and  of  the  commonwealth,  which  has  her  due 
services.  These  are  the  philosophers  which  Plato  would  have 
to  be  princes,  the  princes  which  Solomon  would  have  to  be 
mounted,  and  their  steeds  are  those  of  authority,  not  empire; 
or,  if  they  be  buckled  to  the  chariot  of  empire,  as  that  of  the 
dictatorian  power,  like  the  chariot  of  the  sun,  it  is  glorious  for 
terms  and  vacations  or  intervals.  And  as  a  commonwealth  is  a 
government  of  laws  and  not  of  men,  so  is  this  the  principality  of 
virtue,  and  not  of  man;  if  that  fail  or  set  in  one,  it  rises  in  another 
who  is  created  his  immediate  successor.  And  this  takes  away 
that  vanity  from  under  the  sun,  which  is  an  error  proceeding 
more  or  less  from  all  other  rulers  under  heaven  but  an  equal 
commonwealth. 

These  things  considered,  it  will  be  convenient  in  this  place  to 
speak  a  word  to  such  as  go  about  to  insinuate  to  the  nobility  or 
gentry  a  fear  of  the  people,  or  to  the  people  a  fear  of  the  nobility 
or  gentry,  as  if  their  interests  were  destructive  to  each  other; 
when  indeed  an  army  may  as  well  consist  of  soldiers  without 
officers,  or  of  officers  without  soldiers,  as  a  commonwealth, 
especially  such  a  one  as  is  capable  of  greatness,  of  a  people  without 
a  gentry,  or  of  a  gentry  without  a  people.  Wherefore  this, 
though  not  always  so  intended,  as  may  appear  by  Machiavel, 
who  else  would  be  guilty,  is  a  pernicious  error.  There  is  some- 
thing first  in  the  making  of  a  commonwealth,  then  in  the  govern- 
ing of  it,  and  last  of  all  in  the  leading  of  its  armies,  which,  though 
there  be  great  divines,  great  lawyers,  great  men  in  all  professions, 
seems  to  be  peculiar  only  to  the  genius  of  a  gentleman.  For 
so  it  is  in  the  universal  series  of  story,  that  if  any  man  has  founded 
a  commonwealth,  he  was  first  a  gentleman.  Moses  had  his 
education  by  the  daughter  of  Pharaoh;  Theseus  and  Solon,  of 
noble  birth,  were  held  by  the  Athenians  worthy  to  be  kings; 
Lycurgus  was  of  the  royal  blood;  Romulus  and  Numa  princes; 
Brutus  and  Publicola  patricians;  the  Gracchi,  that  lost  their 


HARRINGTON  377 

lives  for  the  people  of  Rome  and  the  restitution  of  that  common- 
wealth, were  the  sons  of  a  father  adorned  with  two  triumphs, 
and  of  Cornelia  the  daughter  of  Scipio,  who  being  demanded 
in  marriage  by  King  Ptolemy,  disdained  to  become  the  Queen 
of  Egypt.  And  the  most  renowned  Olphaus  Megaletor,  sole 
legislator,  as  you  will  see  anon,  of  the  commonwealth  of  Oceana, 
was  derived  from  a  noble  family;  nor  will  it  be  any  occasion  of 
scruple  in  this  case,  that  Leviathan  affirms  the  politics  to  be  no 
ancienter  than  his  book,  De  Cive.  Such  also  as  have  got  any 
fame  in  the  civil  government  of  a  commonwealth,  or  by  the  leading 
of  its  armies,  have  been  gentlemen;  for  so  in  all  other  respects 
were  those  plebeian  magistrates  elected  by  the  people  of  Rome, 
being  of  known  descents  and  of  equal  virtues,  except  only  that 
they  were  excluded  from  the  name  by  the  usurpation  of  the 
patricians.  Holland,  through  this  defect  at  home,  has  borrowed 
princes  for  generals,  and  gentlemen  of  divers  nations  for  com- 
manders: and  the  Switzers,  if  they  have  any  defect  in  this  kind, 
rather  lend  their  people  to  the  colors  of  other  princes,  than  make 
that  noble  use  of  them  at  home  which  should  assert  the  liberty 
of  mankind.  For  where  there  is  not  a  nobility  to  hearten  the 
people,  they  are  slothful,  regardless  of  the  world,  and  of  the 
public  interest  of  liberty,  as  even  those  of  Rome  had  been  with- 
out their  gentry:  wherefore  let  the  people  embrace  the  gentry 
in  peace,  as  the  light  of  their  eyes;  and  in  war,  as  the  trophy 
of  their  arms;  and  if  Cornelia  disdained  to  be  Queen  of  Egypt, 
if  a  Roman  consul  looked  down  from  his  tribunal  upon  the  greatest 
king,  let  the  nobility  love  and  cherish  the  people  that  afford 
them  a  throne  so  much  higher  in  a  commonwealth,  in  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  their  virtue,  than  the  crowns  of  monarchs. 

But  if  the  equality  of  a  commonwealth  consist  in  the  equality 
first  of  the  agrarian,  and  next  of  the  rotation,  then  the  inequality 
of  a  commonwealth  must  consist  in  the  absence  or  inequality  of 
the  agrarian,  or  of  the  rotation,  or  of  both. 

Israel  and  Lacedaemon,  which  commonwealths  (as  the  people 
of  this,  in  Josephus,  claims  kindred  of  that)  have  great  resem- 
blance, were  each  of  them  equal  in  their  agrarian,  and  unequal 
in  their  rotation,  especially  Israel,  where  the  Sanhedrim  or 
senate,  first  elected  by  the  people,  as  appears  by  the  words  of 
Moses,  took  upon  them  ever  after,  without  any  precept  of  God,  to 
substitute  their  successors  by  ordination;  which  having  been 
there  of  civil  use,  as  excommunication,  community  of  goods,  and 
other  customs  of  the  Essenes,  who  were  many  of  them  converted, 
came  afterward  to  be  introduced  into  the  Christian  Church. 


378  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 


una  the  election  of  the  judge,  suffes,  or  dictator,  was  irregular, 
both  for  the  occasion,  the  term,  and  the  vacation  of  that  magis- 
tracy; as  you  find  in  the  book  of  Judges,  where  it  is  often  repeated, 
that  in  those  days  there  was  no  king  in  Israel — that  is,  no  judge; 
and  in  the  first  of  Samuel,  where  Eli  judged  Israel  forty  years, 
and  Samuel,  all  his  life.  In  Lacedaemon  the  election  of  the  senate 
being  by  suffrage  of  the  people,  though  for  life,  was  not  altogether 
so  unequal,  yet  the  hereditary  right  of  kings,  were  it  not  for  the 
agrarian,  had  ruined  her. 

Athens  and  Rome  were  unequal  as  to  their  agrarian,  that  of 
Athens  being  infirm,  and  this  of  Rome  none  at  all;  for  if  it  were 
more  anciently  carried  it  was  never  observed.  Whence,  by  the 
time  of  Tiberius  Gracchus,  the  nobility  had  almost  eaten  the 
people  quite  out  of  their  lands,  which  they  held  in  the  occupation 
of  tenants  and  servants,  whereupon  the  remedy  being  too 
late,  and  too  vehemently  applied,  that  commonwealth  was 
ruined. 

These  also  were  unequal  in  their  rotation,  but  in  a  contrary 
manner.  Athens,  in  regard  that  the  senate  (chosen  at  once  by 
lot,  not  by  suffrage,  and  changed  every  year,  not  in  part,  but  in 
the  whole)  consisted  not  of  the  natural  aristocracy,  nor  sitting 
long  enough  to  understand  or  to  be  perfect  in  their  office,  had 
no  sufficient  authority  to  restrain  the  people  from  that  per- 
petual turbulence  in  the  end,  which  was  their  ruin,  notwith- 
standing the  efforts  of  Nicias,  who  did  all  a  man  could  do  to 
help  it.  But  as  Athens,  by  the  headiness  of  the  people,  so  Rome 
fell  by  the  ambition  of  the  nobility,  through  the  want  of  an 
equal  rotation;  which,  if  the  people  had  got  into  the  senate,  and 
timely  into  the  magistracies  (whereof  the  former  was  always 
usurped  by  the  patricians,  and  the  latter  for  the  most  part)  they 
had  both  carried  and  held  their  agrarian,  and  that  had  rendered 
that  commonwealth  immovable. 

But  let  a  commonwealth  be  equal  or  unequal,  it  must  consist, 
as  has  been  shown  by  reason  and  all  experience,  of  the  three 
general  orders;  that  is  to  say,  of  the  senate  debating  and  pro- 
posing, of  the  people  resolving,  and  of  the  magistracy  executing. 
Wherefore  I  can  never  wonder  enough  at  Leviathan,  who,  without 
any  reason  or  example,  will  have  it  that  a  commonwealth  con- 
sists of  a  single  person,  or  of  a  single  assembly;  nor  can  I  suffi- 
ciently pity  those  "thousand  gentlemen,  whose  minds,  which 
otherwise  would  have  wavered,  he  has  framed  [as  is  affirmed  by 
himself]  into  a  conscientious  obedience  [for  so  he  is  pleased  to 
call  it]  of  such  a  government." 


HARRINGTON  379 

SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

Smith,  Harrington  and  his  Oceana,  chs.  i,  iv,  vi. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  "James  Harrington,"  in  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 

Toland's  James  Harrington:  The  Oceana  and  Other  Works,  with  an  Account  of 

his  Life,  pp.  xi-xl. 
Franck,   Reformateurs  et  publicistes  de  VEurope,    dix-septieme  siecle,  pp. 

202-212. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  ch.  vii,  §  6. 

Smith,  Harrington  and  his  Oceana,  chs.  ii,  iii,  v,  vii-ix. 

D wight,  "Harrington,  and  his  Influence  upon  American  Political  Institutions 

and  Political  Thought,"  in  Political  Science  Quarterly,  Vol.  II  (1887),  p.  I. 
Gooch,  English  Democratic  Ideas  in  the  Seventeenth  Century,  pp.  285-304. 
Franck,   Reformateurs  et  publicistes  de  I1  Europe,   dix-septieme  siecle,   pp. 

212-252. 
Masson,  Life  of  Milton,  Vol.  V,  pp.  481-486. 


LOCKE 


XVI.    JOHN  LOCKE  (1632-1704) 

INTRODUCTION 

The  three  immediately  preceding  readings  were  from  English 
authors  who  wrote  during  the  period  of  the  Puritan  Revolution 
in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  and  whose  theories  bore 
close  relation  to  the  political  questions  brought  forward  by  the 
contentions  of  that  period.  The  chief  political  work  of  John 
Locke  was  written  in  direct  reference  to  the  Revolution  of  1689. 
His  Two  Treatises  of  Government  comprise  a  philosophic  de- 
fense of  the  parliamentary  party  in  that  conflict;  the  second 
treatise  contains  one  of  the  most  thoroughly  worked  out  and  in- 
fluential expositions  of  the  principles  of  representative  govern- 
ment that  exist. 

Locke  was  born  and  reared  in  a  Puritan  family;  his  father  was 
an  attorney  and  small  landholder.  He  was  a  student  at  Oxford 
at  a  time  when  the  Independents  were  in  control  there;  he  received 
his  bachelor's  degree  in  1656,  his  master's  degree  a  year  later, 
and  he  became  a  tutor  in  Christ  Church  in  1 660.  Though  scholas- 
ticism was  the  dominant  academic  method  of  Oxford  at  that  time, 
Locke  soon  fell  under  the  more  liberalizing  influences  which  were 
beginning  to  be  manifest  in  England.  He  studied  Descartes' 
writings,  pursued  some  experimental  investigation  in  chemical 
sciences,  and  studied  and  practised  medicine  for  a  short  period. 
In  the  late  sixties  he  became  confidential  secretary  to  the  Liberal 
Lord  Shaf tesbury ;  this  introduced  him  to  a  career  which  broadened 
his  experience  and  acquaintanceship  in  such  way  as  profoundly 
to  strengthen  the  liberalistic  tendency  of  his  mind.  Through  his 
connection  with  Lord  Shaf  tesbury  he  became  the  associate  of  many 
public  men  and  scholars  in  England  and  on  the  Continent.  He  was 
in  France  with  Shaf  tesbury  during  the  latter 's  exile,  from  1675  to 
1679;  and  he  resided  in  Holland  from  1685 — the  year  of  Shaftes- 
bury's  death — until  1689,  when  he  returned  to  England,  after 
the  success  of  the  Revolution.  In  the  latter  year  he  was  made 
Commissioner  of  Appeals  and  later  he  was  appointed  to  the  Board 

383 


384  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

of  Trade.  His  counsel  was  often  sought  by  the  political  leaders 
of  that  time. 

Locke's  greater  works  were  published  after  1689.  Before  leaving 
England  for  the  first  time  (in  1675)  he  had  written  several  essays; 
and  he  had  begun  his  great  metaphysical  work — the  Essay  concern- 
ing Human  Understanding,  which  was  published  in  1690.  In  1690 
also  appeared  his  Two  Treatises  of  Government.  In  later  years 
he  published  many  important  essays  on  subjects  of  education, 
Christianity,  and  philosophy;  chief  among  these  are  the  Thoughts 
on  Education  and  The  Reasonableness  of  Christianity.  He  also 
wrote  numerous  pamphlets  in  elucidation  of  his  major  ideas  and 
in  vindication  of  his  characteristic  doctrines  of  empiricism  in 
psychology,  toleration  in  religion,  and  liberalism  in  politics. 

The  first  of  the  Two  Treatises  of  Government  was  written  to  show 
the  fallacy  of  the  doctrine  that  any  divine  prerogatives  attach 
to  the  office  of  king;  in  form  it  is  a  systematic  refutation  of  Sir 
Robert  Filmer's  Patriarcha,  which  was  published  in  1680  and  which 
presented  the  theory  that  political  sovereignty  is  derived  solely 
from  the  original  patriarchal  authority  transmitted,  under  divine 
auspices,  through  hereditary  succession  by  primogeniture.  The 
second  treatise,  Of  Civil  Government,  contains  Locke's  positive 
theory.  It  is  a  comprehensive  discussion  of  the  origin,  character 
and  province  of  government. 

At  various  points  in  this  second  treatise  Locke  acknowledges  his 
indebtedness  to  Hooker;  and  he  attributes  to  Hooker  authorship 
of  the  idea  that  men  originally  lived  together  without  civil  govern- 
ment and  that  political  order  was  instituted  by  their  voluntary 
and  deliberate  cooperation.  Locke  begins,  as  Hobbes  did,  with 
a  depiction  of  the  pre-political  " state  of  nature"  and  with  an 
analysis  of  the  laws  controlling  men  in  that  condition;  and  he 
also  follows  with  an  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  state  through 
the  social  contract.  But  according  to  Locke's  description  the 
laws  which,  as  manifestations  of  man's  natural  reason,  are  con- 
trolling in  the  state  of  nature,  are  such  as  impel  men  to  sociability 
and  generally  to  voluntary  respect  for  certain  primary  rights  of 
others.  Moreover,  Locke  formulates  the  social  contract  in  such 
way  as  to  establish  the  ultimate  supremacy  of  the  people  over  the 
government  and  to  demonstrate  that  the  sphere  and  powers  of 
government  are  limited  by  the  terms  of  the  contract.  He  thus 
develops  a  statement  of  checks  upon  government  and  of  rights 


LOCKE  385 

reserved  by  the  people  against  the  government,  and  in  general 
of  the  right  of  the  majority  to  be  governed  as  they  judge  best  in 
the  interest  of  the  common  welfare. 


READINGS  FROM  BOOK  U  OF  THE  TWO  TREATISES  OF 
GOVERNMENT  x 

1.     The  State  of  Nature* 

\ 

1.  It  having  been  shown  in  ttie  foregoing  discourse: 

First.  That  Adam  had  not,  either  by  natural  right  of  father- 
hood or  by  positive  donation  from  God,  any  such  authority  over 
his  children,  or  dominion  over  the  world,  as  is  pretended. 

Secondly.     That  if  he  had,  his  heirs  yet  had  no  right  to  it. 

Thirdly.  That  if  his  heirs  had,  there  being  no  law  of  nature 
nor  positive  law  of  God  that  determines  which  is  the  right  heir  in 
all  cases  that  may  arise,  the  right  of  succession,  and  consequently 
of  bearing  rule,  could  not  have  been  certainly  determined. 

Fourthly.  That  if  even  that  had  been  determined,  yet  the 
knowledge  of  which  is  the  eldest  line  of  Adam's  posterity  being 
so  long  since  utterly  lost,  that  in  the  races  of  mankind  and  families 
of  the  world,  there  remains  not  to  one  above  another,  the  least 
pretense  to  be  the  eldest  house,  and  to  have  the  right  of  inheritance. 

All  these  premises  having,  as  I  think,  been  clearly  made  out, 
it  is  impossible  that  the  rulers  now  on  earth  should  make  any 
benefit,  or  derive  any  the  least  shadow  of  authority  from  that, 
which  is  held  to  be  the  fountain  of  all  power,  "Adam's  private 
dominion  and  paternal  jurisdiction;"  so  that  he  that  will  not 
give  just  occasion  to  think  that  all  government  in  the  world  is 
the  product  only  of  force  and  violence,  and  that  men  live  together 
by  no  other  rules  but  that  of  beasts,  where  the  strongest  carries 
it,  and  so  lay  a  foundation  for  perpetual  disorder  and  mischief, 
tumult,  sedition,  and  rebellion  (things  that  the  followers  of  that 
hypothesis  so  loudly  cry  out  against),  must  of  necessity  find  out 
another  rise  of  government,  another  original  of  political  power, 
and  another  way  of  designing  and  knowing  the  persons  that 
have  it  than  what  Sir  Robert  Filmer  hath  taught  us. 

2.  To  this  purpose,  I  think  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  set  down 
what  I  take  to  be  political  power;  that  the  power  of  a  magis- 

^he  selections  are  taken  from  Vol.  IV  of  The  Works  of  John  Locke  (i2th 
edition,  London,  1824). 
2  Bk.  II,  chs.  i-iii. 


386  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

trate  over  a  subject  may  be  distinguished  from  that  of  a  father 
over  his  children,  a  master  over  his  servant,  a  husband  over  his 
wife,  and  a  lord  over  his  slave.  All  which  distinct  powers  happen- 
ing sometimes  together  in  the  same  man,  if  he  be  considered  under 
these  different  relations,  it  may  help  us  to  distinguish  these  powers 
one  from  another,  and  show  the  difference  betwixt  a  ruler  of  a 
commonwealth,  a  father  of  a  family,  and  a  captain  of  a  galley. 

3.  Political  power,  then,  I  take  to  be  a  right  of  making  laws, 
with  penalties  of  death,  and  consequently  all  less  penalties  for 
the  regulating  and   preserving  of  property,  and  of  employing 
the  force  of  the  community  in  the  execution  of  such  laws,  and  in 
the  defense  of  the  commonwealth  from  foreign  injury,  and  all 
this  only  for  the  public  good. 

Ch.  ii.     Of  the  State  of  Nature. 

4.  To  understand  political  power  right,  and  derive  it  from 
its  original,  we  must  consider  what  state  all  men  are  naturally 
in,  and  that  is  a  state  of  perfect  freedom  to  order  their  actions 
and  dispose  of  their  possessions  and  persons  as  they  think  fit, 
within  the  bounds  of  the  law  of  nature,  without  asking  leave  or 
depending  upon  the  will  of  any  other  man. 

A  state  also  of  equality,  wherein  all  the  power  and  jurisdiction 
is  reciprocal,  no  one  having  more  than  another,  there  being 
nothing  more  evident  than  that  creatures  of  the  same  species 
and  rank,  promiscuously  born  to  all  the  same  advantages  of 
nature,  and  the  use  of  the  same  faculties,  should  also  be  equal 
one  amongst  another,  without  subordination  or  subjection,  unless 
the  lord  and  master  of  them  all  should,  by  any  manifest  declara- 
tion of  his  will,  set  one  above  another,  and  confer  on  him,  by  an 
evident  and  clear  appointment,  an  undoubted  right  to  dominion 
and  sovereignty. 

6.  But  though  this  be  a  state  of  liberty,  yet  it  is  not  a  state 
of  license;  though  man  in  that  state  have  an  uncontrollable 
liberty  to  dispose  of  his  person  or  possessions,  yet  he  has  not 
liberty  to  destroy  himself,  or  so  much  as  any  creature  in  his  pos- 
session, but  where  some  nobler  use  than  its  bare  preservation 
calls  for  it.  The  state  of  nature  has  a  law  of  nature  to  govern 
it,  which  obliges  every  one;  and  reason,  which  is  that  law,  teaches 
all  mankind  who  will  but  consult  it,  that  being  all  equal  and  inde- 
pendent, no  one  ought  to  harm  another  in  his  life,  health,  liberty 
or  possessions;  for  men  being  all  the  workmanship  of  one  omnipo- 
tent and  infinitely  wise  Maker,  all  the  servants  of  one  sovereign 


LOCKE  387 

Master,  sent  into  the  world  by  His  order  and  about  His  business, 
they  are  His  property,  whose  workmanship  they  are,  made  to 
last  during  His,  not  one  another's  pleasure.  And,  being  furnished 
with  like  faculties,  sharing  all  in  one  community  of  nature,  there 
cannot  be  supposed  any  such  subordination  among  us  that  may 
authorize  us  to  destroy  one  another,  as  if  we  were  made  for  one 
another's  uses,  as  the  inferior  ranks  of  creatures  are  for  ours. 
Every  one,  as  he  is  bound  to  preserve  himself,  and  not  to  quit  his 
station  willfully,  so  by  the  like  reason,  when  his  own  preservation 
comes  not  in  competition,  ought  he  as  much  as  he  can  to  preserve 
the  rest  of  mankind,  and  may  not,  unless  it  be  to  do  justice  on  an 
offender,  take  away,  or  impair  the  life,  or  what  tends  to  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  life,  the  liberty,  health,  limb,  or  goods  of  another. 

7.  And  that  all  men  may  be  restrained  from  invading  others' 
rights,  and  from  doing  hurt  to  one  another,  and  the  law  of  nature 
be  observed,  which  willeth  the  peace  and  preservation  of  all  man- 
kind, the  execution  of  the  law  of   nature  is  in  that  state  put 
into  every  man's  hands,  whereby  every  one  has  a  right  to  punish 
the  transgressors  of  that  law  to  such  a  degree  as  may  hinder 
its  violation.     For  the  law  of   nature  would,  as  all  other  laws 
that  concern  men  in  this  world,  be  in  vain  if  there  were  nobody 
that  in  the  state  of  nature  had  a  power  to  execute  that  law,  and 
thereby  preserve  the  innocent  and  restrain  offenders;  and  if  any 
one  in  the  state  of  nature  may  punish  another  for  any  evil  he 
has  done,  every  one  may  do  so.     For  in  that  state  of  perfect 
equality,  where  naturally  there  is  no  superiority  or  jurisdiction 
of  one  over  another,  what  any  may  do  in  prosecution  of  that  law, 
every  one  must  needs  have  a  right  to  do. 

8.  And  thus,  in  the  state  of   nature,  one  man  comes  by  a 
power  over  another,  but  yet  no  absolute  or  arbitrary  power 
to  use  a  criminal,  when  he  has  got  him  in  his  hands,  according 
to  the  passionate  heats  or  boundless  extravagancy  of  his  own 
will,  but  only  to  retribute  to  him  so  far  as  calm  reason  and  con- 
science dictate,  what  is  proportionate  to  his  transgression,  which 
is  so  much  as  may  serve  for  reparation  and  restraint.     For  these 
two  are  the  only  reasons  why  one  man  may  lawfully  do  harm 
to  another,  which  is  that  we  call  punishment.     In  transgressing 
the  law  of  nature,  the  offender  declares  himself  to  live  by  another 
rule  than  that  of  reason  and  common  equity,  which  is  that  measure 
God  has  set  to  the  actions  of  men  for  their  mutual  security;  and  so 
he  becomes  dangerous  to  mankind,  the  tie  which  is  to  secure 
them  from  injury  and  violence  being  slighted  and  broken  by 
him;  which  being  a  trespass  against  the  whole  species,  and  the 


388  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

peace  and  safety  of  it,  provided  for  by  the  law  of  nature,  every 
man  upon  this  score,  by  the  right  he  hath  to  preserve  mankind 
in  general,  may  restrain,  or  where  it  is  necessary,  destroy  things 
noxious  to  them,  and  so  may  bring  such  evil  on  any  one  who 
hath  transgressed  that  law,  as  may  make  him  repent  the  doing 
of  it,  and  thereby  deter  him,  and  by  his  example  others,  from 
doing  the  like  mischief.  And  in  this  case,  and  upon  this  ground, 
every  man  hath  a  right  to  punish  the  offender,  and  be  executioner 
of  the  law  of  nature. 

9.  I  doubt  not  but  this  will  seem  a  very  strange  doctrine  to 
some  men;  but  before  they  condemn  it,  I  desire  them  to  resolve 
me  by  what  right  any  prince  or  state  can  put  to  death  or  punish 
any  alien  for  any  crime  he  commits  in  their  country.    It  is  certain 
their  laws,  by  virtue  of  any  sanction  they  receive  from  the  promul- 
gated will  of  the  legislature,  reach  not  a  stranger.     They  speak 
not  to  him,  nor,  if  they  did,  is  he  bound  to  hearken  to  them.     The 
legislative  authority  by  which  they  are  in  force  over  the  subjects 
of  that  commonwealth  hath  no   power   over   him.     Those  who 
have  the  supreme  power  of  making  laws  in  England,  France,  or 
Holland,  are,  to  an  Indian,  but  like  the  rest  of  the  world — men 
without  authority.     And  therefore,  if  by  the  law  of  nature  every 
man  hath  not  a  power  to  punish  offenses  against  it,  as  he  soberly 
judges  the  case  to  require,  I  see  not  how  the  magistrates  of  any 
community  can  punish  an  alien  of  another  country,  since,  in 
reference  to  him,  they  can  have  no  more  power  than  what  every 
man  naturally  may  have  over  another. 

10.  Besides  the  crime  which  consists  in  violating  the  law, 
and  varying  from  the  right  rule  of  reason,  whereby  a  man  so 
far  becomes  degenerate,  and  declares  himself  to  quit  the  prin- 
ciples of  human  nature  and  to  be  a  noxious  creature,  there  is 
commonly  injury  done  to  some  person  or  other,  and  some  other 
man  receives  damage  by  his  transgression;  in  which  case,  he  who 
hath  received  any  damage  has  (besides  the  right  of  punishment 
common  to  him,  with  other  men)  a  particular  right  to  seek  repara- 
tion from  him  that  hath  done  it.     And  any  other  person  who  finds 
it  just  may  also  join  with  him  that  is  injured,  and  assist  him  in 
recovering  from  the  offender  so  much  as  may  make  satisfaction 
for  the  harm  he  hath  suffered. 

11.  From  these  two  distinct  rights   (the  one  of  punishing 
the  crime,  for  restraint  and  preventing  the  like  offense,  which 
right  of  punishing  is  in  everybody,  the  other  of  taking  reparation, 
which  belongs  only  to  the  injured  party)  comes  it  to  pass  that 
the  magistrate,  who  by  being  magistrate  hath  the  common  right 


LOCKE  389 

of  punishing  put  into  his  hands,  can  often,  where  the  public  good 
demands  not  the  execution  of  the  law,  remit  the  punishment  of 
criminal  offenses  by  his  own  authority,  but  yet  cannot  remit 
the  satisfaction  due  to  any  private  man  for  the  damage  he  has 
received.  That  he  who  hath  suffered  the  damage  has  a  right  to 
demand  in  his  own  name,  and  he  alone  can  remit.  The  damnified 
person  has  this  power  of  appropriating  to  himself  the  goods  or 
service  of  the  offender  by  right  of  self-preservation,  as  every  man 
has  a  power  to  punish  the  crime  to  prevent  its  being  committed 
again,  by  the  right  he  has  of  preserving  all  mankind,  and  doing 
all  resonable  things  he  can  in  order  to  that  end.  And  thus  it  is  : 
that  every  man  in  the  state  of  nature  has  a  power  to  kill  a  mur- 
derer, both  to  deter  others  from  doing  the  like  injury  (which  no 
reparation  can  compensate)  by  the  example  of  the  punishment 
that  attends  it  from  everybody,  and  also  to  secure  men  from  the 
attempts  of  a  criminal  who,  having  renounced  reason,  the  common 
rule  and  measure  God  hath  given  to  mankind,  hath,  by  the 
unjust  violence  and  slaughter  he  hath  committed  upon  one, 
declared  war  against  all  mankind,  and  therefore  may  be  destroyed 
as  a  lion  or  a  tiger,  one  of  those  wild  savage  beasts  with  whom 
men  can  have  no  society  nor  security.  And  upon  this  is  grounded  ,  , 
that  great  law  of  nature,  "  Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man 
shall  his  blood  be  shed."  And  Cain  was  so  fully  convinced  that 
every  one  had  a  right  to  destroy  such  a  criminal,  that,  after  the 
murder  of  his  brother,  he  cries  out,  "  Every  one  that  findeth  me 
shall  slay  me,"  so  plain  was  it  writ  in  the  hearts  of  all  mankind. 

12.  By  the  same  reason  may  a  man  in  the  state  of  nature 
punish  the  lesser  breaches  of  that  law.  It  will  perhaps  be  de- 
manded, with  death?  I  answer:  Each  transgression  may  be 
punished  to  that  degree,  and  with  so  much  severity,  as  will  suffice 
to  make  it  an  ill  bargain  to  the  offender,  give  him  cause  to  repent, 
and  terrify  others  from  doing  the  like.  Every  offense  that  can 
be  committed  in  the  state  of  nature  may,  in  the  state  of  nature, 
be  also  punished  equally,  and  as  far  forth,  as  it  may,  in  a  common- 
wealth. For  though  it  would  be  beside  my  present  purpose  to 
enter  here  into  the  particulars  of  the  law  of  nature,  or  its  measures 
of  punishment,  yet  it  is  certain  there  is  such  a  law,  and  that  too 
as  intelligible  and  plain  to  a  rational  creature  and  a  studier  of 
that  law  as  the  positive  laws  of  commonwealths,  nay,  possibly 
plainer;  as  much  as  reason  is  easier  to  be  understood  than  the 
fancies  and  intricate  contrivances  of  men,  following  contrary 
and  hidden  interests  put  into  words;  for  so  truly  are  a  great  part 
of  the  municipal  laws  of  countries,  which  are  only  so  far  right  as 


390  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

they  are  founded  on  the  law  of  nature,  by  which  they  are  to  be 
regulated  and  interpreted. 

13.  To  this  strange  doctrine — viz.,  That  in  the  state  of  nature 
every  one  has  the  executive  power  of  the  law  of  nature,  I  doubt 
not  but  it  will  be  objected  that  it  is  unreasonable  for  men  to  be 
judges  in  their  own  cases,  that  self-love  will  make  men  partial 
to  themselves  and  their  friends;  and,  on  the  other  side,  that  ill- 
nature,  passion,  and  revenge  will  carry  them  too  far  in  punishing 
others,  and  hence  nothing  but  confusion  and  disorder  will  fol- 
low, and  that  therefore  God  hath  certainly  appointed  government  to 
restrain  the  partiality  and  violence  of  men.     I  easily  grant  that 
civil  government  is  the  proper  remedy  for  the  inconveniences  of 
the  state  of  nature,  which  must  certainly  be  great  where  men 
may  be  judges  in  their  own  case,  since  it  is  easy  to  be  imagined 
that  he  who  was  so  unjust  as  to  do  his  brother  an  injury  will 
scarce  be  so  just  as  to  condemn  himself  for  it.     But  I  shall  desire 
those  who  make  this  objection  to  remember  that  absolute  monarchs 
are  but  men;  and  if  government  is  to  be  the  remedy  of  those  evils 
which  necessarily  follow  from  men  being  judges  in  their  own 
cases,  and  the  state  of  nature  is  therefore  not  to  be  endured,  I 
desire  to  know  what  kind  of  government  that  is,  and  how  much 
better  it  is  than  the  state  of  nature,  where  one  man  commanding 
a  multitude  has  the  liberty  to  be  judge  in  his  own  case,  and  may 
do  to  all  his  subjects  whatever  he  pleases  without  the  least  liberty 
to  any  one  to  question  or  control  those  who  execute  his  pleasure? 
and  in  whatsoever  he  doth,  whether  led  by  reason,  mistake,  or 
passion,  must  be  submitted  to?    Much  better  it  is  in  the  state  of 
nature,  wherein  men  are  not  bound  to  submit  to  the  unjust  will 
of  another.      And  if  he  that  judges,  judges  amiss  in  his  own  or 
any  other  case,  he  is  answerable  for  it  to  the  rest  of  mankind. 

14.  It  is  often  asked  as  a  mighty  objection,  where  are,  or  ever 
were,  there  any  men  in  such  a  state  of  nature?    To  which  it  may 
suffice  as  an  answer  at  present,  that  since  all  princes  and  rulers  of 
"independent"  governments  all  through  the  world  are  in  a  state 
of  nature,  it  is  plain  the  world  never  was,   nor  ever  will  be, 
without  numbers  of  men  in  that  state.     I  have  named  all  govern- 
ors of  "independent"  communities,  whether  they  are,  or  are  not, 
in  league  with  others;  for  it  is  not  every  compact  that  puts  an 
end  to  the  state  of  nature  between  men,  but  only  this  one  of 
agreeing  together  mutually  to  enter  into  one  community,  and  make 
one  body  politic;  other  promises  and  compacts  men  may  make 
with  one  another,  and  yet  still  be  in  the  state  of  nature.     The 
promises  and  bargains  for  truck,  etc.,  between  the  two  men  in 


LOCKE  391 

the  desert  island  ...  or  between  a  Swiss  and  an  Indian 
in  the  woods  of  America,  are  binding  to  them,  though  they  are 
perfectly  in  a  state  of  nature  in  reference  to  one  another;  for  truth 
and  keeping  of  faith  belongs  to  men  as  men,  and  not  as  members 
of  society. 

15.  To  those  that  say  there  were  never  any  men  in  the  state 
of  nature,  I  will  not  only  oppose  the  authority  of  the  judicious 
Hooker  (Eccl.  Pol.  lib.  i.  sect.  10),  where  he  says,  "the  laws  which  v 
have  been  hitherto  mentioned" — i.e.,  the  laws  of  nature — "do 
bind  men  absolutely,  even  as  they  are  men,  although  they  have 
never  any  settled  fellowship,  never  any  solemn  agreement  amongst 
themselves  what  to  do  or  not  to  do;  but  for  as  much  as  we  are  not 
by  ourselves  sufficient  to  furnish  ourselves  with  competent  store 
of  things  needful  for  such  a  life  as  our  nature  doth  desire,  a  life 
fit  for  the  dignity  of  man,  therefore  to  supply  those  defects  and 
imperfections  which  are  in  us,  as  living  single  and  solely  by 
ourselves,  we  are  naturally  induced  to  seek  communion  and 
fellowship  with  others;  this  was  the  cause  of  men  uniting  them- 
selves at  first  in  politic  societies."     But  I,  moreover,  affirm  that 
all  men  are  naturally  in  that  state,  and  remain  so  till,  by  their  own 
consents,  they  make  themselves  members  of  some  politic  society, 
and  I  doubt  not,  in  the  sequel  of  this  discourse,  to  make  it  very 
clear. 

Ch.  iii.     Of  the  State  of  War. 

1 6.  The  state  of  war  is  a  state  of  enmity  and  destruction; 
and  therefore  declaring  by  word  or  action,   not  a  passionate 
and  hasty,  but  sedate,  settled  design  upon  another  man's  life 
puts  him  in  a  state  of  war  with  him  against  whom  he  has  de- 
clared such  an  intention,  and  so  has  exposed  his  life  to  the  other's 
power  to  be  taken  away  by  him,  or  any  one  that  joins  with  him 
in  his  defense,  and  espouses  his  quarrel;   it  being  reasonable 
and  just  I  should  have  a  right  to  destroy  that  which  threatens 
me  with  destruction;   for  by  the  fundamental  law  of   nature, 
man  being  to  be  preserved  as  much  as  possible,  when  all  cannot 
be  preserved,  the  safety  of  the  innocent  is  to  be  preferred;  and 
one  may  destroy  a  man  who  makes  war  upon  him,  or  has  dis- 
covered an  enmity  to  his  being,  for  the  same  reason  that  he  may 
kill  a  wolf  or  a  lion;  because  such  men  are  not  under  the  ties  of 
the  common  law  of  reason,  have  no  other  rule  but  that  of  force 
and  violence,  and  so  may  be  treated  as  beasts  of  prey,  those  dan- 
gerous and  noxious  creatures  that  will  be  sure  to  destroy  him 
whenever  he  falls  into  their  power. 


392  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

17.  And  hence  it  is  that  he  who  attempts  to  get  another  man 
into  his  absolute  power  does  thereby  put  himself  into  a  state  of 
war  with  him;  it  being  to  be  understood  as  a  declaration  of  a  design 
upon  his  life.     For  I  have  reason  to  conclude  that  he  who  would 
get  me  into  his  power  without  my  consent  would  use  me  as  he 
pleased  when  he  had  got  me  there,  and  destroy  me  too  when  he 
had  a  fancy  to  it;  for  nobody  can  desire  to  have  me  in  his  absolute 
power  unless  it  be  to  compel  me  by  force  to  that  which  is  against 
the  right  of  my  freedom — i.e.,  make  me  a  slave.     To  be  free 
from  such  force  is  the  only  security  of  my  preservation,  and 
reason  bids  me  look  on  him  as  an  enemy  to  my  preservation  who 
would  take  away  that  freedom  which  is  the  fence  to  it ;  so  that  he 
who  makes  an  attempt  to  enslave  me  thereby  puts  himself  into 
a  state  of  war  with  me.     He  that  in  the  state  of  nature  would 
take  away  the  freedom  that  belongs  to  any  one  in  that  state 
must  necessarily  be  supposed  to  have  a  design  to  take  away 
everything  else,  that  freedom  being  the  foundation  of  all  the  rest; 
as  he  that  in  the  state  of  society  would  take  away  the  freedom 
belonging  to  those  of  that  society  or  commonwealth  must  be 
supposed  to  design  to  take  away  from  them  everything  else,  and 
so  be  looked  on  as  in  a  state  of  war. 

1 8.  This  makes  it  lawful  for  a  man  to  kill  a  thief  who  has 
not  in  the  least  hurt  him,  nor  declared  any  design  upon  his  life, 
any  farther  than  by  the  use  of  force  so  to  get  him  in  his  power 
as  to  take  away  his  money,  or  what  he  pleases,  from  him;  because 
using  force,  where  he  has  no  right,  to  get  me  into  his  power,  let 
his  pretense  be  what  it  will,  I  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he 
who  would  take  away  my  liberty  would  not,  when  he  had  me  in 
his   power,   take  away  everything   else.     And,   therefore,   it  is 
lawful  for  me  to  treat  him  as  one  who  has  put  himself  into  a 
state  of  war  with  me — i.e.,  kill  him  if  I  can;  for  to  that  hazard 
does  he  justly  expose  himself  whoever  introduces  a  state  of  war, 
and  is  aggressor  in  it. 

19.  And  here  we  have  the  plain  difference  between  the  state 
of  nature  and  the  state  of  war,  which  however  some  men  have 
confounded,  are  as  far  distant  as  a  state  of  peace,  goodwill, 
mutual   assistance,   and   preservation,   and   a   state   of  enmity, 
malice,  violence,  and  mutual  destruction  are  one  from  another. 
Men  living  together  according  to  reason,  without   a   common 
superior    on  earth  with  authority  to  judge  between  them,   is 
properly  the  state  of  nature.      But  force,  or  a  declared  design  of 
force,  upon  the  person  of  another,  where  there  is  no  common 
superior  on  earth  to  appeal  to  for  relief,  is  the  state  of  war;  and 


LOCKE  393 

it  is  the  want  of  such  an  appeal  gives  a  man  the  right  of  war 
even  against  an  aggressor,  though  he  be  in  society  and  a  fellow- 
subject.  Thus,  a  thief  whom  I  cannot  harm,  but  by  appeal 
to  the  law,  for  having  stolen  all  that  I  am  worth,  I  may  kill 
when  he  sets  on  me  to  rob  me  but  of  my  horse  or  coat;  because 
the  law,  which  was  made  for  my  preservation,  where  it  cannot 
interpose  to  secure  my  life  from  present  force,  which  if  lost  is 
capable  of  no  reparation,  permits  me  my  own  defense  and  the 
right  of  war,  a  liberty  to  kill  the  aggressor,  because  the  aggressor 
allows  not  time  to  appeal  to  our  common  judge,  nor  the  decision 
of  the  law,  for  remedy  in  a  case  where  the  mischief  may  be  ir- 
reparable. Want  of  a  common  judge  with  authority  puts  all 
men  in  a  state  of  nature ;  force  without  right  upon  a  man's  person 
makes  a  state  of  war  both  where  there  is,  and  is  not,  a  common 
judge. 

21.  To  avoid  this  state  of  war  (wherein  there  is  no  appeal 
but  to  heaven,  and  wherein  every  the  least  difference  is  apt  to 
end  where  there  is  no  authority  to  decide  between  the  contend- 
ers) is  one  great  reason  of  men's  putting  themselves  into  society 
and  quitting  the  state  of  nature.  For  where  there  is  an  authori- 
ty, a  power  on  earth,  from  which  relief  can  be  had  by  appeal, 
there  the  continuance  of  the  state  of  war  is  excluded,  and  the 
controversy  is  decided  by  that  power.  .  . 

2.     Political  Society1 

Ch.  vii.     Of  Political  or  Civil  Society. 

77.  God,  having  made  man  such  a  creature  that,  in  His  own 
judgment,  it  was  not  good  for  him  to  be  alone,  put  him  under 
strong  obligations  of  necessity,  convenience,  and  inclination,  to 
drive  him  into  society,  as  well  as  fitted  him  with  understanding 
and  language  to  continue  and  enjoy  it.  The  first  society  was 
between  man  and  wife,  which  gave  beginning  to  that  between 
parents  and  children,  to  which,  in  time,  that  between  master  and 
servant  came  to  be  added.  And  though  all  these  might,  and 
commonly  did,  meet  together  and  make  up  but  one  family, 
wherein  the  master  or  mistress  of  it  had  some  sort  of  rule  proper 
to  a  family,  each  of  these,  or  all  together,  came  short  of  "political 
society,"  as  we  shall  see  if  we  consider  the  different  ends,  ties, 
and  bounds  of  each  of  these. 

87.     Man  being  born,  as  has  been  proved,  with  a  title  to  perfect 

1  Book  II,  chs.  vii-viii  (in  part),  ix-x. 


394  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

freedom  and  an  uncontrolled  enjoyment  of  all  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  the  law  of  nature,  equally  with  any  other  man,  or 
number  of  men  in  the  world,  hath  by  nature  a  power  not  only  to 
preserve  his  property — that  is,  his  life,  liberty,  and  estate  against 
the  injuries  and  attempts  of  other  men,  but  to  judge  of  and  punish 
the  breaches  of  that  law  in  others,  as  he  is  persuaded  the  offense 
deserves,  even  with  death  itself,  in  crimes  where  the  heinousness 
of  the  fact,  in  his  opinion,  requires  it.  But  because  no  political 
society  can  be,  nor  subsist,  without  having  in  itself  the  power  to 
preserve  the  property,  and  in  order  thereunto  punish  the  offenses 
,  of  all  those  of  that  society,  there,  and  there  only,  is  political 
^  society  where  every  one  of  the  members  hath  quitted  his  natural 
power,  resigned  it  up  into  the  hands  of  the  community  in  all  cases 
that  exclude  him  not  from  agpealing  for  protection  to  "trie  law 
established  by  it.  And  thus  all  private  judgment  of  every  par- 
ticular member  being  excluded,  the  community  comes  to  be 
v  umpire  by  settled  standing  rules,  indifferent  and  the  same 
to  all  parties;  and  by  men/""ftaving  authority  from  the  com- 
munity for  the  execution  of  those  rules,  decides  all  the  differ- 
ences that  may  happen  between  any  members  of  that  society 
concerning  any  matter  of  right,  and  punishes  those  offenses 
which  any  member  hath  committed  against  the  society  with  such 
penalties  as  the  law  has  established;  whereby  it  is  easy  to  discern 
who  are,  and  are  not,  in  political  society  together.  Those  who  f 
are  united  into  one  body,  and  have  a  common  established  law 
and  judicature  to  appeal  to,  with  authority  to  decide  controversies 
between  them  and  punish  offenders,  are  in  civil  society  one  with  \  \ 
another;  but  those  who  have  no  such  common  appeal,  I  mean  on 
earth,  are  still  in  the  state  of  nature,  each  being  where  there  is  J 
no  other,  judge  for  himself  and  executioner;  which  is,  as  I  have 
before  shown,  the  perfect  state  of  nature. 

88.  And  thus  the  commonwealth  comes  by  a  power  to  set 
down  what  punishment  shall  belong  to  the  several  transgressions 
they  think  worthy  of  it,  committed  amongst  the  members  of 
that  society  (which  is  the  power  of  making  laws)  as  well  as  it  has 
the  power  to  punish  any  injury  done  unto  any  of  its  members 
by  any  one  that  is  not  of  it  (which  is  the  power  of  war  and  peace) ; 
and  all  this  for  the  preservation  of  the  property  of  all  the  members 
of  that  society,  as  far  as  is  possible.  But  though  every  man 
who  has  entered  into  civil  society  and  is  become  a  member  of  any 
commonwealth,  has  thereby  quitted  his  power  to  punish  offenses 
against  the  law  of  nature  in  prosecution  of  his  own  private 
judgment,  yet  with  the  judgment  of  offences  which  he  has  given 


LOCKE  395 

up  to  the  legislative,  in  all  cases  where  he  can  appeal  to  the 
magistrate,  he  has  given  up  a  right  to  the  commonwealth  to  em- 
ploy his  force  for  the  execution  of  the  judgments  of  the  common- 
wealth whenever  he  shall  be  called  to  it,  which,  indeed,  are  his 
own  judgments,  they  being  made  by  himself  or  his  representative. 
And  herein  we  have  the  original  of  the  legislative  and  executive 
power  of  civil  society,  which  is  to  judge  by  standing  laws  how  far 
offences  are  to  be  punished  when  committed  within  the  common- 
wealth ;  and  also  to  determine  by  occasional  judgments  founded  on 
the  present  circumstances  of  the  fact,  how  far  injuries  from  with- 
out are  to  be  vindicated;  and  in  both  these  to  employ  all  the 
force  of  all  the  members  when  there  shall  be  need. 

89.  Whenever,  therefore,  any  number  of  men  so  unite  into] 
one  society  as  to  quit  every  one  his  executive  power  of  the  law 
of  nature,  and  to  resign  it  to  the  public,  there  and  there  only  is 
a  political  or  civil  society.     And  this  is  done  wherever  any  number 
of  men  in  the  state  of  nature,  enter  into  society  to  make  one 
people,  one  body  politic,  under  one  supreme  government;  or  else 
when  any  one  joins  himself  to,  and  incorporates  with,  any  govern- 
ment already  made.     For  hereby  he  authorizes  the  society,  or 
which  is  all  one,  the  legislative  thereof,  to  make  laws  for  him 
as  the  public  good  of  the  society  shall  require,  to  the  execution 
whereof  his  own  assistance  (as  to  his  own  decrees)  is  due.    And 
this  puts  men  out  of  a  state  of  nature  into  that  of  a  common- 
wealth, by  setting  up  a  judge  on  earth  with  authority  to  determine 
all  the  controversies  and  redress  the  injuries  that  may  happen 
to  any  member  of  the  commonwealth,  which  judge  is  the  legislative 
or  magistrate   appointed  by  it.     And  wherever  there  are  any 
number  of  men,  however  associated,  that  have  no  such  decisive 
power  to  appeal  to,  there  they  are  still  in  the  state  of  nature. 

90.  And  hence  it  is  evident  that  absolute  monarchy,  which 
by  some  men  is  counted  for  the  only  government  in  the  world, 
is  indeed  inconsistent  with  civil  society,  and  so  can  be  no  form 
of  civil  government  at  all.     For  the  end  of  civil  society  being  to 
avoid  and  remedy  those  inconveniences  of  the  state  of   nature 
which  necessarily  follow  from  every  man's  being  judge  in  his  own 
case,  by  setting  up  a  known  authority  to  which  every  one  of  that 
society  may  appeal  upon  any  injury  received,  or  controversy 
that  may  arise,  and  which  every  one  of  the  society  ought  to  obey, 
wherever  any  persons  are  who  have  not  such  an  authority  to 
appeal  to  for  the  decision  of  any  difference  between  them,  there 
those  persons  are  still  in  the  state  of  nature;  and  so  is  every  abso- 
lute prince  in  respect  of  those  who  are  under  his  dominion. 


396  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

91.  For  he  being  supposed  to  have  all,  both  legislative  and 
executive,  power  in  himself  alone,  there  is  no  judge  to  be  found, 
no  appeal  lies  open  to  any  one,  who  may  fairly  and  indifferently, 
and  with  authority  decide,  and  from  whose  decision  relief  and  re- 
dress may  be  expected  of  any  injury  or  inconveniency  that  may  be 
suffered  from  him,  or  by  his  order.  So  that  such  a  man,  however 
entitled,  Czar,  or  Grand  Seignior,  or  how  you  please,  is  as  much 
in  the  state  of  nature  with  all  under  his  dominion  as  he  is  with 
the  rest  of  mankind.  For  wherever  any  two  men  are,  who  have 
no  standing  rule  and  common  judge  to  appeal  to  on  earth  for 
the  determination  of  controversies  of  right  betwixt  them,  there 
they  are  still  in  the  state  of  nature  and  under  all  the  incon- 
veniences of  it,  with  only  this  woeful  difference  to  the  subject, 
or  rather  slave,  of  an  absolute  prince:  that  whereas  in  the 
ordinary  state  of  nature  he  has  a  liberty  to  judge  of  his  right 
and  according  to  the  best  of  his  power  to  maintain  it,  now  when- 
ever his  property  is  invaded  by  the  will  and  order  of  his  monarch, 
he  has  not  only  no  appeal,  as  those  in  society  ought  to  have, 
but,  as  if  he  were  degraded  from  the  common  state  of  rational 
creatures,  is  denied  a  liberty  to  judge  of,  or  defend  his  right, 
and  so  is  exposed  to  all  the  misery  and  inconveniences  that  a  man 
can  fear  from  one,  who  being  in  the  unrestrained  state  of  nature, 
is  yet  corrupted  with  flattery  and  armed  with  power. 

Ch.  viii.     Of  the  Beginning  of  Political  Societies. 

95.  Men  being,  as  has  been  said,  by  nature  all  free,  equal, 
and  independent,  no  one  can  be  put  out  of  this  estate  and  subjected 
to  the  political  power  of  another  without  his  own  consent.     The 
only  way  whereby  any  one  divests  himself  of  his  natural  liberty 
and  puts  on  the  bonds  of  civil  society,  is  by  agreeing  with  other 
men,  to  join  and  unite  into  a  community  for  their  comfortable, 
safe,  and  peaceable  living,  one  amongst  another,  in   a  secure 
enjoyment  of  their  properties,  and  a  greater  security  against  any 
that  are  not  of  it.     This  any  number  of  men  may  do,  because  it 
injures  not  the  freedom  of  the  rest;  they  are  left,  as  they  were, 
in  the  liberty  of  the  state  of  nature.    When  any  number  of  men 
have  so  consented  to  make  one  community  or  government,  they 
are  thereby  presently  incorporated,  and  make  one  body  politic, 
wherein  the  majority  have  a  right  to  act  and  conclude  the  rest. 

96.  For,  when  any  number  of  men  have,  by  the  consent 
of  every  individual,   made   a   community,   they  have   thereby 
made  that  community  one  body,  with  a  power  to  act  as  one 
body,  which  is  only  by  the  will  and  determination  of  the  majority. 


LOCKE  397 

For  that  which  acts  any  community,  being  only  the  consent  of 
the  individuals  of  it,  and  it  being  necessary  to  that  which  is  one 
body  to  move  one  way,  it  is  necessary  the  body  should  move  that 
way  whither  the  greater  force  carries  it,  which  is  the  consent  of 
the  majority,  or  else  it  is  impossible  it  should  act  or  continue 
one  body,  one  community,  which  the  consent  of  every  individual 
that  united  into  it  agreed  that  it  should;  and  so  every  one  is 
bound  by  that  consent  to  be  concluded  by  the  majority.  And 
therefore  we  see  that  in  assemblies  empowered  to  act  by  positive 
laws  where  no  number  is  set  by  that  positive  law  which  empow- 
ers them,  the  act  of  the  majority  passes  for  the  act  of  the  whole, 
and  of  course  determines,  as  having,  by  the  law  of  nature  and  rea- 
son, the  power  of  the  whole. 

97.  And  thus  every  man,  by  consenting  with  others  to  make 
one  body  politic  under  one  government,  puts  himself  under  an 
obligation  to  every  one  of  that  society  to  submit  to  the  deter- 
inination  of  the  majority,  and  to  be  concluded  by  it;  or  else  this 
original  compact,  whereby  he  with  others  incorporates  into  one 
society,  would  signify  nothing,  and  be  no  compact,  if  he  be  left 
free  and  under  no  other  ties  than  he  was  in  before  in  the  state  of 
nature.     For  what  appearance  would  there  be  of  any  compact? 
What  new  engagement,  if  he  were  no  farther  tied  by  any  decrees 
of  the  society  than  he  himself  thought  fit  and  did  actually  consent 
to?    This  would  be  still  as  great  a  liberty  as  he  himself  had 

.  before  his  compact,  or  any  one  else  in  the  state  of  nature  hath, 
who  may  submit  himself  and  consent  to  any  acts  of  it  if  he 
thinks  fit. 

98.  For  if  the  consent  of  the  majority  shall  not  in  reason 
be  received  as  the  act  of  the  whole,  and  conclude  every  individual, 
nothing  but  the  consent  of  every  individual  can  make  anything 
to  be  the  act  of  the  whole;  but  such  a  consent  is  next  to  im- 
possible ever  to  be  had,  if  we  consider  the  infirmities  of  health 
and   avocations  of  business,  which  in  a  number   though  much 
less  than  that  of  a  commonwealth  will  necessarily  keep  many 
away  from  the  public  assembly;  to  which  if  we  add  the  variety 
of  opinions  and  contrariety  of  interests  which  unavoidably  hap- 
pen in  all  collections  of  men,  the   coming  into   society  upon 
such  terms  would  be  only  like  Cato's  coming  into  the  theater, 
only  to  go  out  again.     Such  a  constitution  as  this  would  make 
the  mighty  leviathan  of  a  shorter  duration  than  the  feeblest 
creatures,  and  not  let  it  outlast  the  day  it  was  born  in,  which 
cannot   be   supposed   till  we  can  think  that   rational   creatures 
should  desire  and  constitute  societies  only  to  be  dissolved.     For 


398  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

where  the  majority  cannot  conclude  the  rest,  there  they  cannot 
act  as  one  body,  and  consequently  will  be  immediately  dissolved 
again. 

99.  Whosoever,  therefore,  out  of  a  state  of  nature  unite  into 
a  community,  must  be  understood  to  give  up  all  the  power  neces- 
sary to  the  ends  for  which  they  unite  into  society  to  the  majority 
of  the  community,  unless  they  expressly  agreed  in  any  number 
greater  than  the  majority.     And  this  is  done  by  barely  agreeing 
to  unite  into  one  political  society,  which  is  all  the  compact  that 
is,  or  needs  be,  between  the  individuals  that  enter  into  or  make  up 
a  commonwealth.     And  thus,  that  which  begins  and  actually 
constitutes  any  political  society  is  nothing  but  the  consent  of  any 
number  of  freemen  capable  ofamajority,  to  unite  and  incorporate 
into  such  a  society.    And  this  is*  that,  and  that  only,  which  did 
or  could  give  beginning  to  any  lawful  government  in  the  world. 

100.  To  this   I  find  two  objections  made:   i.     That  there 
are  no  instances  to  be  found  in  story  of  a  company  of  men,  in- 
dependent and  equal  one  amongst  another,  that  met  together, 
and  in  this  way  began  and  set  up  a  government.     2.     It  is  im- 
possible of  right  that  men  should  do  so,  because  all  men,  being 
born  under  government,  they  are  to  submit  to  that,  and  are  not 
at  liberty  to  begin  a  new  one* 

1 01.  To  the  first  there  is  this  to  answer:  That  it  is  not  at 
all  to  be  wondered  that  history  gives  us  but  a  very  little  account 
of  men  that  lived  together  in  the  state  of  nature.     The  incon- 
veniences of  that  condition,  and  the  love  and  want  of  society, 
no  sooner  brought  any  number  of  them  together,  but  they  presently 
united  and  incorporated,  if  they  designed  to  continue  together. 
And  if  we  may  not  suppose  men  ever  to  have  been  in  the  state  of 
nature,  because  we  hear  not  much  of  them  in  such  a  state,  we 
may  as  well  suppose  the  armies  of  Salmanasser  or  Xerxes  were 
never  children,  because  we  hear  little  of  them  till  they  were  men 
and  embodied  in  armies.     Government  is  everywhere^SnEecederit 
to  record's^  an'!^  letters  seldom  come  in  amongst  a  people  till  a 
long  continuation  of  civil  society  has,  by  other  more  necessary 
arts,  provided  for  their  safety,  ease,  and  plenty.     And  then  they 
begin  to  look  after  the  history  of  their  founders,  and  search  into 
their  original  when  they  have  outlived  the  memory  of  it.     For 
it  is  with  commonwealths  as  with  particular  persons,  they  are 
commonly  ignorant  of  their  own  births  and  infancies;  and  if  they 
know  anything  of  their  original,  they  are  beholden  for  it  to  the 
accidental  records  that  others  have  kept  of  it.     And  those  that 
we  have  of  the  beginning  of  any  polities  in  the  world,  excepting 


LOCKE  399 

that  of  the  Jews,  where  God  Himself  immediately  interposed 
and  which  favors  not  at  all  paternal  dominion,  are  all  either 
plain  instances  of  such  a  beginning  as  I  have  mentioned,  or  at  least 
have  manifest  footsteps  of  it. 

The  other  objection,  I  find,  urged  against  the  beginning  of 
polities,  in  the  way  I  have  mentioned,  is  this,  viz. : — 

113.  "That   all  men   being  born  under   government,   some 
or  other,  it  is  impossible  any  of  them  should  ever  be  free  and 
at  liberty  to  unite  together  and  begin  a  new  one,  or  ever  be  able 
to  erect  a  lawful  government."     If  this  argument  be  good,  I  ask, 
How^came^so^many  lawful  monarchies  into  the  world?    For  if 
anybody,  upon  this  supposition,  can  show  me  any  one  man,  in 

.  any  age  of  the  world,  free  to  begin  a  lawful  monarchy,  I  will  be 
bound  to  show  him  ten  other  freemen  at  liberty,  at  the  same  time, 
to  unite  and  begin  a  new  government  under  a  regal  or  any  other 
form.  It  being  demonstrated  that  if  any  one  born  under  the 
dominion  of  another  may  be  so  free  as  to  have  a  right  to  command 
others  in  a  new  and  distinct  empire,  every  one  that  is  born  under 
the  dominion  of  another  may  be  so  free  too,  and  may  become  a 
ruler  or  subject  of  a  distinct  separate  government.  And  so,  by 
this  their  own  principle,  either  all  men,  however  born,  are  free,  or 
else  there  is  but  one  lawful  prince,  one  lawful  government  in  the 
world;  and  then  they  have  nothing  to  do  but  barely  to  show  us 
which  that  is;  which  when  they  have  done,  I  doubt  not  but  all 
mankind  will  easily  agree  to  pay  obedience  to  him. 

1 14.  Though  it  be  a  sufficient  answer  to  their  objection  to  show 
that  it  involves  them  in  the  same  difficulties  that  it  doth  those 
they  use  it  against,  yet  I  shall  endeavor  to  discover  the  weakness 
of  this  argument  a  little  farther. 

"All  men,"  say  they,  "are  born  under  government,  and  there- 
fore they  cannot  be  at» liberty  to  begin  a  new  one.  Every  one  is 
born  a  subject  to  his  father  or  his  prince,  and  is  therefore  under 
the  perpetual  tie  of  subjection  and  allegiance."  It  is  plain  man- 
kind never  owned  nor  considered  any  such  natural  subjection 
that  they  were  born  in,  to  one  or  to  the  other,  that  tied  them, 
without  their  own  consents,  to  a  subjection  to  them  and  their 
heirs. 

115.  For  there  are  no  examples  so  frequent  in  history,  both 
sacred  and  profane,  as  those  of  men  withdrawing  themselves 
and  their  obedience  from  the  jurisdiction  they  were  born  under, 
and  the  family  or  community  they  were  bred  up  in,  and  setting 
up  new  governments  in  other  places,  from  whence  sprang  all  that 
number  of  petty  commonwealths  in  the  beginning  of  ages,  and 


400  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

which  always  multiplied  as  long  as  there  was  room  enough,  till 
the  stronger  or  more  fortunate  swallowed  the  weaker;  and  those 
great  ones,  again  breaking  to  pieces,  dissolved  into  lesser  domin- 
ions; all  which  are  so  many  testimonies  against  paternal 
sovereignty,  and  plainly  prove  that  it  was  not  the  natural  right 
of  the  father  descending  to  his  heirs  that  made  governments 
in  the  beginning;  since  it  was  impossible,  upon  that  ground, 
there  should  have  been  so  many  little  kingdoms;  all  must  have 
been  but  only  one  universal  monarchy,  if  men  had  not  been  at 
liberty  to  separate  themselves  from  their  families  and  the  govern- 
ment, be  it  what  it  will,  that  was  set  up  in  it,  and  go  and  make 
distinct  commonwealths  and  other  governments  as  they  thought 
fit. 

1 1 6.  This  had  been  the  practice  of  the  world  from  its  first 
beginning  to  this  day;  nor  is  it  now  any  more  hindrance  to 
the  freedom  of  mankind,  that  they  are  born  under  constituted 
and  ancient  polities  that  have  established  laws  and  set  forms  of 
government,  than  if  they  were  born  in  the  woods  amongst  the 
unconfmed  inhabitants  that  run  loose  in  them.  For  those  who 
would  persuade  us  that  by  being  born  under  any  government 
we  are  naturally  subjects  to  it,  and  have  no  more  any  title  or 
pretense  to  the  freedom  of  the  state  of  nature,  have  no  other  reason 
(bating  that  of  paternal  power,  which  we  have  already  answered) 
to  produce  for  it,  but  only  because  our  fathers  or  progenitors 
passed  away  their  natural  liberty,  and  thereby  bound  up  them- 
selves and  their  posterity  to  a  perpetual  subjection  to  the  govern- 
ment which  they  themselves  submitted  to.  It  is  true  that  what- 
ever engagements  or  promises  any  one  has  made  for  himself,  he  is 
under  the  obligation  of  them,  but  cannot  by  any  compact  what- 
soever bind  his  children  or  posterity.  For  his  son,  when  a  man, 
being  altogether  as  free  as  the  father,  any  act  of  the  father  can 
no  more  give  away  the  liberty  of  the  son  than  it  can  of  anybody 
else.  He  may,  indeed,  annex  such  conditions  to  the  land  he 
enjoyed,  as  a  subject  of  any  commonwealth,  as  may  oblige  his 
son  to  be  of  that  community,  if  he  will  enjoy  those  possessions 
which  were  his  father's,  because  that  estate  being  his  father's 
property,  he  may  dispose  or  settle  it  as  he  pleases. 

119.  Every  man  being,  as  has  been  shown,  naturally  free, 
and  nothing  being  able  to  put  him  into  subjection  to  any  earthly 
power,  but  only  his  own  consent,  it  is  to  be  considered  what  shall 
be  understood  to  be  a  sufficient  declaration  of  a  man's  consent 
to  make  him  subject  to  the  laws  of  any  government.  There  is 
a  common  distinction  of  an  express  and  a  tacit  consent,  which  will 


LOCKE  401 

concern  our  present  case.  Nobody  doubts  but  an  express  consent 
of  any  man,  entering  into  any  society,  makes  him  a  perfect 
member  of  that  society,  a  subject  of  that  government.  The 
difficulty  is,  what  ought  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  tacit  consent, 
and  how  far  it  binds — i.e.,  how  far  any  one  shall  be  looked  on  to 
have  consented,  and  thereby  submitted  to  any  government, 
where  he  has  made  no  expressions  of  it  at  all.  And  to  this  I  say, 
that  every  man  that  hath  any  possessions,  or  enjoyment  of  any 
part  of  the  dominions  of  any  government,  doth  thereby  give  his 
tacit  consent,  and  is  as  far  forth  obliged  to  obedience  to  the  laws 
of  that  government,  during  such  enjoyment,  as  any  one  under  it, 
whether  this  his  possession  be  of  land  to  him  and  his  heirs  for 
ever,  or  a  lodging  only  for  a  week,  or  whether  it  be  barely  trav- 
eling freely  on  the  highway;  and,  in  effect,  it  reaches  as  far 
as  the  very  being  of  any  one  within  the  territories  of  that 
government. 

1 20.  To  understand  this  the  better,  it  is  fit  to  consider  that 
every  man  when  he  at  first  incorporates  himself  into  any  com- 
monwealth, he,  by  his  uniting  himself  thereunto,  annexes  also, 
and  submits  to  the  community,  those  possessions  which  he  has, 
or  shall  acquire,  that  do  not  already  belong  to  any  other  govern- 
ment.    For  it  would  be  a  direct  contradiction  for  any  one  to  enter 
into  society  with  others  for  the  securing  and  regulating  of  property, 
and  yet  to  suppose  his  land,  whose  property  is  to  be  regulated 
by  the  laws  of  the  society,  should  be  exempt  from  the  jurisdiction 
of  that  government  to  which  he  himself,  the  proprietor  of  the 
land,  is  a  subject.     By  the  same  act,  therefore,  whereby  any  one 
unites  his  person,  which  was  before  free,  to  any  commonwealth, 
by  the  same  he  unites  his  possessions,  which  were  before  free, 
to  it  also;  and  they  become,  both  o'f  them,  person  and  possession, 
subject  to  the  government  and  dominion  of  that  commonwealth 
as  long  as  it  hath  a  being.    Whoever  therefore,  from  thenceforth, 
by  inheritance,  purchase,  permission,  or  otherwise,  enjoys  any 
part  of  the  land  so  annexed  to,  "and  under  the  government  of  that 
commonwealth,  must  take  it  with  the  condition  it  is  under — that 
is  of  submitting  to  the  government  of  the  commonwealth,  under 
whose  jurisdiction  it  is,  as  -far  forth  as  any  subject  of  it. 

121.  But  since  the  government  has  a  direct  jurisdiction  only 
over  the  land  and  reaches  the  possessor  of  it  (before  he  has  actually 
incorporated  himself  in  the  society)  only  as  he  dwells  upon  and 
enjoys  that,  the  obligation  any  one  is  under  by  virtue  of  such 
enjoyment  to  submit  to  the  government  begins  and  ends  with  the 
enjoyment;  so  that  whenever  the  owner,  who  has  given  nothing 


402  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

but  such  a  tacit  consent  to  the  government  will,  by  donation, 
sale  or  otherwise,  quit  the  said  possession,  he  is  at  liberty  to  go 
and  incorporate  himself  into  any  other  commonwealth,  or  agree 
with  others  to  begin  a  new  one  in  vacuis  locis,  in  any  part  of  the 
world  they  can  find  free  and  unpossessed;  whereas  he  that  has 
once,  by  actual  agreement  and  any  express  declaration,  given  his 
consent  to  be  of  any  commonwealth,  is  perpetually  and  indispens- 
ably obliged  to  be,  and  remain  unalterably  a  subject  to  it,  and 
can  never  be  again  in  the  liberty  of  the  state  of  nature,  unless 
by  any  calamity  the  government  he  was  under  comes  to  be  dis- 
solved, or  else  by  some  public  act  cuts  him  off  from  being  any 
longer  a  member  of  it. 

122.  But  submitting  to  the  laws  of  any  country,  living  quietly 
and  enjoying  privileges  and  protection  under  them,  makes  not  a 
man  a  member  of  that  society;  it  is  only  a  local  protection  and 
homage  due  to  and  from  all  those  who,  not  being  in  a  state  of  war, 
come  within  the  territories  belonging  to  any  government,  to  all 
parts  whereof  the  force  of  its  law  extends.     But  this  no  more  makes 
a  man  a  member  of  that  society,  a  perpetual  subject  of  that  com- 
monwealth, than  it  would  make  a  man  a  subject  to  another 
in  whose  family  he  found  it  convenient  to  abide  for  some  time, 
though,  whilst  he  continued  in  it,  he  were  obliged  to  comply  with 
the  laws  and  submit  to  the  government  he  found  there.    And 
thus  we  see  that  foreigners,  by  living  all  their  lives  under  another 
government,  and  enjoying  the  privileges  and  protection  of  it, 
though  they  are  bound,  even  in  conscience,  to  submit  to  its 
administration  as  far  forth  as  any  denizen,  yet  do  not  thereby 
come  to  be  subjects  or  members  of  that  commonwealth.     Nothing 
can  make  any  man  so,  but  his  actually  entering  into  it  by  positive 
engagement  and  express  promise  and  compact.     This  is  that 
which,  I  think,  concerning  the  beginning  of  political  societies, 
and  that  consent  which  makes  any  one  a  member  of  any  common- 
wealth. 

Ch.  ix.     Of  the  Ends  of  Political  Society  and  Government. 

123.  If  man  in  the  state  of  nature  be  so  free  as  has  been  said,  if 
he  be  absolute  lord  of  his  own  person  and  possessions,  equal  to  the 
greatest  and  subject  to  nobody,  why  will  he  part  with  his  freedom, 
why  will  he  give  up  his  empire,  and  subject  himself  to  the  dominion 
and  control  of  any  other  power?     To  which  it  is  obvious  to  answer, 
that  though  in  the  state  of  nature  he  hath  such  a  right,  yet  the 
enjoyment  of  it  is  very  uncertain  and  constantly  exposed  to  the 
invasion  of  others;  for  all  being  kings  as  much  as  he,  every  man 


LOCKE  403 

his  equal,  and  the  greater  part  no  strict  observers  of  equity  and 
justice,  the  enjoyment  of  the  property  he  has  in  this  state  is  very 
unsafe,  very  insecure.  This  makes  him  willing  to  quit  a  con- 
dition which,  however  free,  is  full  of  fears  and  continual  dangers; 
and  it  is  not  without  reason  that  he  seeks  out  and  is  willing  to 
join  in  society  with  others  who  are  already  united,  or  have  a  mind 
to  unite  for  the  mutual  preservation  of  their  lives,  liberties  and'' 
estates,  which  I  call  by  the  general  name — property. 

124.  The  great  and  chief  end,  therefore,  of  men  uniting  into 
commonwealths,  and  putting  themselves  under  government,  is 
the  preservation  of  their  property;  to  which  in  the  state  of  nature 
there  are  many  things  wanting. 

First:  there  wants  an  established,  settled,  known  law,  received 
and  allowed  by  common  consent  to  be  the  standard  of  right  and 
wrong,  and  the  common  measure  to  decide  all  controversies 
between  them.  For  though  the  law  of  nature  be  plain  and  in- 
telligible to  all  rational  creatures,  yet  men,  being  biased  by  their 
interest,  as  well  as  ignorant  for  want  of  study  of  it,  are  not  apt  to 
allow  of  it  as  a  law  binding  to  them  in  the  application  of  it  to  their 
particular  cases. 

125.  Secondly:  in  the  state  of  nature  there  wants  a  known 
and  indifferent  judge,  with   authority   to   determine   all   differ- 
ences according  to  the  established  law.     For  every  one  in  that 
state  being  both  judge  and  executioner  of  the  law  of   nature, 
men  being  partial  to  themselves,  passion  and  revenge  is  very  apt 
to  carry  them  too  far,  and  with  too  much  heat  in  their  own  cases, 
as  well  as  negligence  and  unconcernedness  to  make  them  too  re- 
miss in  other  men's. 

126.  Thirdly:  in  the  state  of  nature  there  often  wants  power 
to  back  and  support  the  sentence  when  right,  and  to  give  it 
due  execution.     They  who  by  any  injustice  offend  will  seldom  fail, 
where  they  are  able,  by  force  to  make  good  their  injustice.     Such 
resistance  many  times  makes  the  punishment  dangerous,  and 
frequently  destructive  to  those  who  attempt  it. 

127.  Thus   mankind,   notwithstanding   all   the   privileges   of 
the  state  of   nature,  being  but   in  an  ill  condition  while  they 
remain  in  it,  are  quickly  driven  into  society.     Hence  it  comes 
to  pass,  that  we  seldom  find  any  number  of  men  live  any  time 
together  in  this  state.     The  inconveniencies  that  they  are  therein 
exposed  to  by  the  irregular  and  uncertain  exercise  of  the  power 
every  man  has  of  punishing  the  transgressions  of  others,  make 
them  take  sanctuary  under  the  established  laws  of  government, 
and  therein  seek  the  preservation  of  their  property.     It  is  this 


404  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

makes  them  so  willingly  give  up  every  one  his  single  power  of 
punishing  to  be  exercised  by  such  alone  as  shall  be  appointed  to 
it  amongst  them,  and  by  such  rules  as  the  community,  or  those 
authorized  by  them  to  that  purpose,  shall  agree  on.  And  in  this 
we  have  the  original  right  and  rise  of  both  the  legislative  and 
executive  power  as  well  as  of  the  governments  and  societies 
themselves. 

128.  For  in  the  state  of  nature,  to  omit  the  liberty  he  has 
of  innocent  delights,  a  man  has  two  powers.     The  first  is  to  do 
whatsoever  he  thinks  fit  for  the  preservation  of  himself  and  others 
within  the  permission  of  the  law  of  nature;  by  which  law,  common 
to  them  all,  he  and  all  the  rest  of  mankind  are  one  community, 
make  up  one  society  distinct  from  all  other  creatures;  and  were 
it  not  for  the  corruption  and  viciousness  of  degenerate  men,  there 
would  be  no  need  of  any  other,  no  necessity  that  men  should 
separate  from  this  great  and  natural  community,  and  by  positive 
agreements  combine  into  smaller  and  divided  associations.     The 
other  power  a  man  has  in  the  state  of  nature  is  the  power  to  pun- 
ish the  crimes  committed  against  that  law.     Both  these  he  gives 
up  when  he  joins  in  a  private,  if  I  may  so  call  it,  or  particular 
political  society,  and  incorporates  into  any  commonwealth  sepa- 
rate from  the  rest  of  mankind. 

129.  The  first  power — viz.,  of  doing  whatsoever  he  thought 
fit  for  the  preservation  of  himself  and  the  rest  of  mankind,  he 
gives  up  to  be  regulated  by  laws  made  by  the  society,  so  far 
forth  as  the  preservation  of  himself  and  the  rest  of  that  society 
shall  require ;  which  laws  of  the  society  in  many  things  confine  the 
liberty  he  had  by  the  law  of  nature. 

130.  Secondly,   the  power  of  punishing  he  wholly  gives  up, 
and  engages  his  natural  force  (which  he  might  before  employ 
in  the  execution  of  the  law  of  nature,  by  his  own  single  authority, 
as  he  thought  fit)  to  assist  the  executive  power  of  the  society  as 
the  law  thereof  shall  require.     For  being  now  in  a  new  state, 
wherein  he  is  to    enjoy  many  conveniencies    from  the   labor, 
assistance,  and  society  of  others  in  the  same  community,  as  well 
as  protection  from  its  whole  strength,  he  is  to  part  also  with  as 
much  of  his  natural  liberty,  in  providing  for  himself,  as  the  good, 
prosperity,  and  safety  of  the  society  shall  require,  which  is  not 
only  necessary  but  just,  since  the  other  members  of  the  society 
do  the  like. 

131.  But  though  men  when  they  enter  into  society  give  up 
the  equality,  liberty,  and  executive  power  they  had  in  the  state 
of  nature  into  the  hands  of  the  society,  to  be  so  far  disposed  of 


LOCKE  405 

by  the  legislative  as  the  good  of  the  society  shall  require,  yet 
it  being  only  with  an  intention  in  every  one  the  fofctej  to  preserve 
himself,  his  liberty  and  property  (for  no  rational  creature  can 
be  supposed  to  change  his  condition  with  an  intention  to  be 
worse),  the  power  of  the  society  or  legislative  constituted  by  them 
can  never  be  supposed  to  extend  farther  than  the  common  good, 
but  is  obliged  to  secure  every  one's  property  by  providing  against 
those  three  defects  above  mentioned  that  made  the  state  of  nature 
so  unsafe  and  uneasy.  And  so,  whoever  has  the  legislative  or 
supreme  power  of  any  commonwealth,  is  bound  to  govern  by 
established  standing  laws,  promulgated  and  known  to  the  people, 
and  not  by  extemporary  decrees;  by  indifferent  and  upright 
judges,  who  are  to  decide  controversies  by  those  laws;  and  to 
employ  the  force  of  the  community  at  home  only  in  the  execution 
of  such  laws,  or  abroad  to  prevent  or  redress  foreign  injuries 
and  secure  the  community  from  inroads  and  invasion.  And  all 
this  to  be  directed  to  no  other  end  but  the  peace,  safety,  and  public 
good  of  the  people. 

Ch.  x.     Of  the  Forms  of  a  Commonwealth. 

132.  The  majority  having,  as  has  been  shown,  upon  men's 
first  uniting  into  society,  the  whole  power  of  the  community 
naturally  in  them,  may  employ  all  that  power  in  making  laws 
for  the  community  from  time  to  time,  and  executing  those  laws 
by  officers  of  their  own  appointing,  and  then  the  form  of  the 
government  Js  a  perfect  democracy;  or  else  may  put  the  power  of 
making  laws  into  the  hands  of  a  few  select  men,  and  their  heirs 
or  successors,  and  then  it  is  an  oligatdiy;  or  else  into  the  hands  of 
one  man,  and  then  it  is  a  monarchy;  if  to  him  and  his  heirs,Jt  is  a 
hejre^itary^rrio^iai^^;  if  to  him  only  for  life,  but  upon  his"3eatlT 
the  power  only  of  nominating  a  successor  to  return  to  them,  an 
elective  monarchy.  And  so  accordingly  of  these  the  community 
may  malEe  compounded  and  mixed  forms  of  government,  as  they 
think  good.  And  if  the  legislative  power  be  at  first  given  by  the 
majority  to  one  or  more  persons  only  for  their  lives,  or  any 
limited  time,  and  then  the  supreme  power  to  revert  to  them 
again,  when  it  is  so  reverted  the  community  may  dispose  of  it 
again  anew  into  what  hands  they  please,  and  so  constitute  a  new 
form  of  government;  for  the  form  of  government  depending  upon 
the  placing  the  supreme  power,  which  is  the  legislative  (it  being 
impossible  to  conceive  that  an  inferior  power  should  prescribe  to  a 
superior,  or  any  but  the  supreme  make  laws),  according  as  the  power 
of  making  laws  is  placed,  such  is  the^form  of  the  commonwealth. 


406  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

133.  By  " commonwealth"  I  must  be  understood  all  along  to 
mean  not  a  democracy,  or  any  form  of  government,  but  any 
independent  community,  which  the  Latins  signified  by  the  word 
cimtas,  to  which  the  word  which  best  answers  in  our  language  is 
"commonwealth,"  and  most  properly  expresses  such  a  society 
of  men  which  community  or  city  in  English  does  not;  for  there 
may  be   subordinate   communities  in  a   government,   and  city 
amongst  us  has  quite  a  different  notion  from  commonwealth. 
And  therefore,  to  avoid  ambiguity,  I  crave  leave  to  use  the  word 
"  commonwealth "  in  that  sense,  in  which  sense  I  find  the  word 
used  by  King  James  the  First,  and  I  take  it  to  be  its  genuine 
signification,  which,  if  anybody  dislike,  I  consent  with  him  to 
change  it  for  a  better. 

8.     Limitations  upon  Government.1 

Ch.  xi.     Of  the  Extent  of  the  Legislative  Power. 

134.  The  great  end  of  men's  entering  into  society  being  the 
enjoyment  of  their  properties  in  peace  and  safety,  and  the  great 
instrument  and  means  of  that  being  the  laws  established  in  that 
society,  the  first  and  fundamental  positive,  law  of  all  common- 
wealths is  the  establishing  of  the  legislative  power;  as  the  first 
and  fundamental jiaturaL  law,  which  is  to  govern  even  the  legis- 
lative itself,  is  th~e~~preservation  of  the  society  and   (as  far  as 
will  consist  with  the  public  good)  of  every  person  in  it.     This 
legislative  is  not  only  the  supreme  power  of  the  commonwealth, 
but  sacred  and  unalterable  in  the  hands  where  the  community 
have  once  placed  it.     Nor  can  any  edict  of  anybody  else,  in  what 
form  soever  conceived,  or  by  what  power  soever  backed,  have 
the  force  and  obligation  of  a  law  which  has  not  its  sanction  from 
that  legislative  which  the  public  has  chosen  and  appointed;  for 
without  this  the  law  could  not  have  that  which   is  absolutely 
necessary  to  its  being  a  law,  the  consent  of  the  society,  over 
whom  nobody  can  have  a  power  to  make  laws  but  by  their  own 
consent  and  by  authority  received  from  them;  and  therefore  all 
the  obedience,  which  by  the  most  solemn  ties  any  one  can  be 
obliged  to  pay,  ultimately  terminates  in  this  supreme  power,  and 
is  directed  by  those  laws  which  it  enacts.     Nor  can  any  oaths 
to  any  foreign  power  whatsoever,  or  any  domestic  subordinate 
power,  discharge  any  member  of  the  society  from  his  obedience 
to  the  legislative,  acting  pursuant  to  their  trust,  nor  oblige  him 
to  any  obedience  contrary  to  the  laws  so  enacted  or  farther 

ifik.  II,  ch.  xi. 


LOCKE  407 

than  they  do  allow,  it  being  ridiculous  to  imagine  one  can  be  tied 
ultimately  to  obey  any  power  in  the  society  which  is  not  the  supreme. 

135.  Though  the  legislative,  whether  placed  in  one  or  more, 
whether  it  be  always  in  being  or  only  by  intervals,  though  it  be 
the  supreme  power  in  every  commonwealth,  yet,  first,  it  is  not, 
nor  can  possibly  be,  absolutely  arbitrary  over  the  lives  and  for- 
tunes of  the  people.     For  it  being  but  the  joint  power  of  every 
member  of  the  society  given  up  to  that  person  or  assembly  which 
is  legislator,  it  can  be  no  more  than  those  persons  had  in  a  state 
of  nature  before  they  entered  into  society,  and  gave  it  up  to  the 
community.     For  nobody  can  transfer  to  another  more  power 
than  he  has  in  himself,  and  nobody  has  an  absolute  arbitrary 
power  over  himself,  or  over  any  other,  to  destroy  his  own  life,  or 
take  away  the  life  or  property  of  another.    A  man,  as  has  been 
proved,  cannot  subject  himself  to  the  arbitrary  power  of  another; 
and  having,  in  the  state  of  nature,  no  arbitrary  power  over  the 
life,  liberty,  or  possession  of  another,  but  only  so  much  as  the  law 
of  nature  gave  him  for  the  preservation  of  himself  and  the  rest 
of  mankind,  this  is  all  he  doth,  or  can  give  up  to  the  commonwealth, 
and  by  it  to  the  legislative  power,  so  that  the  legislative  can 
have  no  more  than  this.     Their  power  in  the  utmost  bounds  of  it 
is  limited  to  the  public  good  of  the  society.     It  is  a  power  that 
hath  no  other  end  but  preservation,  and  therefore  can  never 
have  a  right  to  destroy,  enslave,  or  designedly  to  impoverish 
the  subjects;  the  obligations  of  the  law  of   nature  cease  not  in 
society,  but  only  in  many  cases  are  drawn  closer,  and  have,  by 
human  laws,  known  penalties  annexed  to  them  to  enforce  their 
observation.      Thus  the  law  of  nature  stands  as  an  eternal  rule 
to  all  men,  legislators  as  well  as  others.  'The  rules  that  they 
make  for  other  men's  actions  must,  as  well  as  their  own  and  other 
men's  actions,  be  conformable  to  the  law  of  nature-^'.e.,  to  the 
will  of  God,  of  which  that  is  a  declaration;  and  the  fundamental 
law  of  nature  being  the  preservation  of   mankind,  no  human 
sanction  can  be  good  or  valid  against  it. 

136.  Secondly,  the  legislative  or  supreme  authority  cannot 
assume  to  itself  a  power  to  rule  by  extemporary,  arbitrary  decrees, 
but  is  bound  to  dispense  justice  and  decide  the  rights  of  the  sub- 
ject by  promulgated  standing  laws,  and  known  authorized  judges. 
For  the  law  of  nature  being  unwritten,  and  so  nowhere  to  be 
found  but  in  the  minds  of  men,  they  who,  through  passion  or 
interest,  shall  miscite  or  misapply  it,  cannot  so  easily  be  convinced 
of  their  mistake  where  there  is  no  established  judge;  and  so  it 
serves  not,  as  it  ought,  to  determine  the  rights  and  fence  the 


408  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

properties  of  those  that  live  under  it,  especially  where  every  one 
is  judge,  interpreter,  and  executioner  of  it  too,  and  that  in  his 
own  case;  and  he  that  has  right  on  his  side,  having  ordinarily 
but  his  own  single  strength,  hath  not  force  enough  to  defend 
himself  from  injuries  or  punish  delinquents.  To  avoid  these 
inconveniencies  which  disorder  men's  properties  in  the  state  of 
nature,  men  unite  into  societies  that  they  may  have  the  united 
strength  of  the  whole  society  to  secure  and  defend  their  properties, 
and  may  have  standing  rules  to  bound  it,  by  which  every  one 
may  know  what  is  his.  To  this  end  it  is  that  men  give  up  all 
their  natural  power  to  the  society  they  enter  into,  and  the  com- 
munity put  the  legislative  power  into  such  hands  as  they  think 
fit;  with  this  trust,  that  they  shall  be  governed  by  declared  laws, 
or  else  their  peace,  quiet,  and  property  will  still  be  at  the  same 
uncertainty  as  it  was  in  the  state  of  nature. 

137.  Absolute  arbitrary  power,  or  governing  without  settled 
standing  laws,  can  neither  of  them  consisifwitrTthe  ends  ofsociety 
and  government,  which  men  would  not  quit  the  freedom  of  the 
state  of  nature  for,  and  tie  themselves  up  under  were  it  not  to 
preserve  their  lives,  liberties,  and  fortunes,  and  by  stated  rules 
of  right  and  property  to  secure  their  peace  and  quiet.  It  cannot 
be  supposed  that  they  should  intend,  had  they  a  power  so  to  do, 
to  give  any  one  or  more  an  absolute  arbitrary  power  over  their 
persons  and  estates,  and  put  a  force  into  the  magistrate's  hand  to 
execute  his  unlimited  will  arbitrarily  upon  them;  this  were  to 
put  themselves  into  a  worse  condition  than  the  state  of  nature 
wherein  they  had  a  liberty  to  defend  their  right  against  the  in- 
juries of  others,  and  were  upon  equal  terms  of  force  to  maintain  it, 
whether  invaded  by  a  single  man  or  many  in  combination.  Where- 
as by  supposing  they  have  given  up  themselves  to  the  absolute 
arbitrary  power  and  will  of  a  legislator,  they  have  disarmed  them- 
selves, and  armed  him  to  make  a  prey  of  them  when  he  pleases; 
he  being  in  a  much  worse  condition  that  is  exposed  to  the  arbitrary 
power  of  one  man  who  has  the  command  of  an  hundred  thousand 
than  he  that  is  exposed  %Q  the  arbitrary  power  of  an  hundred 
thousand  singte  men,  nobody  being  secure  that  his  will  who  has 
such  a  command  is  better  than  that  of  other  men,  though  his  force 
be  an  hundred  thousand  times  stronger^  And,  therefore,  whatever 
form  the  commonwealth  is  under,  the  ruling  power  ought  to  govern 
by  declared  and  received  laws,  and  not  by  extemporary  dictates 
and  undetermined  resolutions;  for  then  mankind  will  be  in  a  far 
worse  condition  than  in  the  state  of  nature;  if  they  shall  have  armed 
one  or  a  few  men  with  the  joint  power  of  a  multitude,  to  force 


LOCKE  409 

them  to  obey  at  pleasure  the  exorbitant  and  unlimited  decrees 
of  their  sudden  thoughts,  or  unrestrained,  and  till  that  moment, 
unknown  wills,  without  having  any  measures  set  down  which  may 
guide  and  justify  their  actions.  For  all  the  power  the  govern- 
ment has,  being  only  for  the  good  of  the  society,  as  it  ought  not 
to  be  arbitrary  and  at  pleasure,  so  it  ought  to  be  exercised  by 
established  and  promulgated  laws,  that  both  the  people  may 
know  their  duty,  and  be  safe  and  secure  within  the  limits  of  the 
law,  and  the  rulers,  too,  kept  within  their  bounds,  and  not  be 
tempted  by  the  power  they  have  in  their  hands  to  employ  it 
to  such  purposes,  and  by  such  measures,  as  they  would  not  have 
known,  and  own  not  willingly. 

138.  ^Thirdly,  the  supreme  power  cannot  take  from  any  man  .  X. 
any  part  of  his  property  without  his  own  consent.  For  the  ' 
preservation  of  property  being  the  end  of  government,  and  that 
for  which  men  enter  into  society,  it  necessarily  supposes  and  re- 
quires that  the  people  should  have  property,  without  which 
they  must  be  supposed  to  lose  that,  by  entering  into  society, 
which  was  the  end  for  which  they  entered  into  it;  too  gross  an 
absurdity  for  any  man  to  own.  Men,  therefore,  in  society  having 
property,  they  have  such  a  right  to  the  goods,  which  by  the  law 
of  the  community  are  theirs,  that  nobody  hath  a  right  to  take 
their  substance  or  any  part  of  it  from  them  without  their  own  con- 
sent; without  this  they  have  no  property  at  all.  For  I  have 
truly  no  property  in  that  which  another  can  by  right  take  from  me 
when  he  pleases  against  my  consent.  Hence  it  is  a  mistake  to 
think  that  the  supreme  or  legislative  power  of  any  commonwealth 
can  do  what  it  will,  and  dispose  of  the  estates  of  the  subject 
arbitrarily,  or  take  any  part  of  them  at  pleasure.  This  is  not 
much  to  be  feared  in  governments  where  the  legislative  consists 
wholly  or  in  part  in  assemblies  which  are  variable,  whose  members 
upon  the  dissolution  of  the  assembly  are  subjects  under  the  com- 
mon laws  of  their  country,  equally  with  the  rest.  But  in  govern- 
ments where  the  legislative  is  in  one  lasting  assembly  always  in 
being,  or  in  one  man  as  in  absolute  monarchies,  there  is  danger 
still  that  they  will  think  themselves  to  have  a  distinct  interest 
from  the  rest  of  the  community,  and  so  will  be  apt  to  increase 
their  own  riches  and  power  by  taking  what  they  think  fit  from  the 
people.  For  a  man's  property  is  not  at  all  secure,  though  there 
be  good  and  equitable  laws  to  set  the  bounds  of  it  between  him 
and  his  fellow-subjects,  if  he  who  commands  those  subjects  have 
power  to  take  from' any  private  man  what  part  he  pleases  of  his 
property,  and  use  and  dispose  of  it  as  he  thinks  good. 


-. 
^Sgp 


410  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

139.  But  government  into  whatsoever  hands  it  is  put,  being 
as  I  have  before  shown,  intrusted  with  this  condition,  and  for 
this  end,  that  men  might  have  and  secure  their  properties,  the 
prince  or  senate,  however  it  may  have  power  to  make  laws  for 
the  regulating  of  property  between  the  subjects  one  amongst 
another,  yet  can  never  have  a  power  to  take  to  themselves  the 
whole,  or  any  part  of  the  subjects'  property,  without  their  own 
consent;  for  this  would  be  in  effect  to  leave  them  no  property 
at  all.    And  to  let  us  see  that  even  absolute  power,  where  it  is 
necessary,  is  not  arbitrary  by  being  absolute,  but  is  still  limited 
by  that  reason,  and  confined  to  those  ends,  which  required  it  in 
some  cases  to  be  absolute,  we  need  look  no  farther  than  the  com- 
mon practice  of  martial  discipline.     For  the  preservation  of  the 
army,  and  in  it  of  the  whole  commonwealth,  requires  an  absolute 
obedience  to  the  command  of  every  superior  officer,  and  it  is 
justly  death  to  disobey  or  dispute  the  most  dangerous  or  un- 
reasonable of  them;  but  yet  we  see  that  neither  the  sergeant  that 
could  command  a  soldier  to  march  up  to  the  mouth  of  a  cannon, 
or  stand  in  a  breach  where  he  is  almost  sure  to  perish,  can  com- 
mand that  soldier  to  give  him  one  penny  of  his  money;  nor  the 
general  that  can  condemn  him  to  death  for  deserting  his  post,  or 
for  not  obeying  the  most  desperate  orders,  can  yet  with  all  his 
absolute  power  of  life  and  death  dispose  of  one  farthing  of  that 
soldier's  estate,  or  seize  one  jot  of  his  goods;  whom  yet  he  can 
command  anything,  and  hang  for  the  least  disobedience.     Because 
such  a  blind  obedience  is  necessary  to  that  end  for  which  the 
commander  has  his  power  —  viz.,  the  preservation  of  the  rest; 
but  the  disposing  of  his  goods  has  nothing  to  do  with  it. 

140.  It  is  true  governments  cannot  be  supported  without 
great  charge,  and  it  is  fit  every  one  who  enjoys  his  share  of  the 

rotection  should  pay  out  of  his  estate  his  proportion  for  the 
maintenance  of  it.  But  still  it  must  be  with  his  own  consent  — 
i.e.,  the  consent  of  the  majority,  giving  it  either  by  themselves 
or  their  representatives  chosen  by  them;  for  if  any  one  shall  claim 
a  power  to  lay  and  levy  taxes  on  the  people  by  his  own  authority, 
and  without  such  consent  of  the  people,  he  thereby  invades  the 
fundamental  law  of  property,  and  subverts  the  end  of  govern- 
ment. For  what  property  have  I  in  that  which  another  may 
by  right  take  when  he  pleases  to  himself? 

141.  Fourthly.     The   legislative   cannot   transfer   the   power 
of  making  laws  to  any  other  hands,  for  it  being  but  a  delegated 
power  from  the  people,  they  who  have  it  cannot  pass  it  over  to 
others.     The  people  alone  can  appoint  the  form  of  the  common- 


LOCKE  411 

wealth,  which  is  by  constituting  the  legislative,  and  appointing 
in  whose  hands  that  shall  be.  And  when  the  people  have  said, 
"  We  will  submit  to  rules,  and  be  governed  by  laws  made  by  such 
men,  and  in  such  forms,"  nobody  else  can  say  other  men  shall 
make  laws  for  them;  nor  can  the  people  be  bound  by  any  laws 
but  such  as  are  enacted  by  those  whom  they. have  chosen  and 
authorized  to  make  laws  for  them.  .  .  . 

142.  These  are  the  bounds  which  the  trust  that  is  put  in  them 
by  the  society  and  the  law  of  God  and  nature  have  set  to  the 
legislative  power  of  every  commonwealth,  in  all  forms  of  govern- 
ment.    First:  They  are  to  govern  by  promulgated  established  ^ 
laws,  not  to  be  varied  in  particular  cases,  but  to  have  one  rule  for 
rich  and  poor,  for  the  favorite  at  court,  and  the  countryman 

at  plow.  Secondly:  These  laws  also  ought  to  be  designed  for 
no  other  end  ultimately  but  the  good  of  the  people.  Thirdly: 
They  must  not  raise  taxes  on  the  property  of  the  people  without 
the  consent  of  the  people  given  by  themselves  or  their  deputies. 
And  this  properly  concerns  only  such  governments  where  the 
legislative  is  always  in  being,  or  at  least  where  the  people  have  not 
reserved  any  part  of  the  legislative  to  deputies,  to  be  from  time 
to  time  chosen  by  themselves.  Fourthly:  The  legislative  neither 
must  nor  can  transfer  the  power  of  making  laws  to  anybody  else, 
or  place  it  anywhere  but  where  the  people  have. 

4.     The  Separation  of  Powers  in  Government l 

Ch.  xii.     Of  the  Legislative,  Executive,  and  Federative  Power  of  the 
Commonwealth. 

143.  The  legislative  power  is  that  which  has  a  right  to  direct 
how  the  force  of  the  commonwealth  shall  be  employed  for  pre- 
serving the  community  and  the  members  of  it.     But  because  those 
laws  which  are  constantly  to  be  executed,  and  whose  force  is 
always  to  continue,  may  be  made  in  a  little  time,  therefore  there 
is  no  need  that  the  legislative  should  be  always  in  being,  not  having 
always  business  to  do.    And  because  it  may  be  too  great  tempta- 
tion to  human  frailty,  apt  to  grasp  at  power,  for  the  same  persons 
who  have  the  power  of  making  laws  to  have  also  in  their  hands 
the  power  to  execute  them,  whereby  they  may  exempt  themselves 
from  obedience  to  the  laws  they  make,  and  suit  the  law,  both  in 
its  making  and  execution,  to  their  own  private  advantage,  and 
thereby  come  to  have  a  distinct  interest  from  the  rest  of  the  com- 
munity, contrary  to  the  end  of  society  and  government, — there- 

1  Bk.  II,  chs.  xii-xiii. 


412  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

fore  in  well-ordered  commonwealths,  where  the  good  of  the  whole 
is  so  considered  as  it  ought,  the  legislative  power  is  put  into  the 
hands  of  divers  persons  who,  duly  assembled,  have  by  themselves, 
or  jointly  with  others,  a  power  to  make  laws,  which  when  they 
have  done,  being  separated  again,  they  are  themselves  subject 
to  the  laws  they  have  made;  which  is  a  new  and  near  tie  upon 
them  to  take  care  that  they  make  them  for  the  public  good. 

144.  But  because  the  laws  that  are  at  once  and  in  a  short 
time  made,  have  a  constant  and  lasting  force,  and  need  a  per- 
petual execution,   or  an  attendance  thereunto,   therefore  it  is 
necessary  there  should  be  a  power  always  in  being  which  should 
see  to  the  execution  of  the  laws  that  are  made,  and  remain  in 
force.    And  thus  the  legislative_and_executive  power  come  often 
to  be  separated^ 

145.  There  is  another  power  in  every  commonwealth  which 
one  may  call  natural,  because  it  is  that  which  answers  to  the  power 
every  man  naturally  had  before  he  entered  into  society.    For 
though  in  a  commonwealth  the  members  of  it  are  distinct  persons 
still,  in  reference  to  one  another,  and,  as  such,  are  governed  by  the 
laws  of  the  society,  yet,  in  reference  to  the  rest  of  mankind,  they 
make  one  body,  which  is,  as  every  member  of  it  before  was,  still 
in  the  state  of  nature  with  the  rest  of  mankind.  Hence  it  is  that  the 
controversies  that  happen  between  any  man  of  the  society  with 
those  that  are  out  of  it  are  managed  by  the  public,  and  an  injury 
done  to  a  member  of  their  body  engages  the  whole  in  the  repara- 
tion of  it.     So  that  under  this  consideration  the  whole  community 
is  one  body  in  the  state  of  nature  in  respect  of  all  other  states  or 
persons  out  of  its  community. 

146.  This,  therefore,  contains  the  power  of  war  and  peace, 
leagues  and  alliances,  and  all  the  transactions  with  all  persons 
and  communities  without  the  commonwealth,  and  may  be  called 
federative  if  any  one  pleases.     So  the  thing  be  understood,  I  am 
indifferent  as  to  the  name. 

147.  These  two  powers,  executive  and  federative,  though  they 
be  really  distinct  in  themselves,  yet  one  comprehending  the  execu- 
tion of  the  municipal  laws  of  the  society  within  itself  upon  all 
that  are  parts  of  it,  the  other  the  management  of  the  security 
and  interest  of  the  public  without  with  all  those  that  it  may 
receive  benefit  or  damage  from,  yet  they  are  always  almost  united. 
And  though  this  federative  power  in  the  well  or  ill  management 
of  it  be  of  great  moment  to  the  commonwealth,  yet  it  is  mucn  less 
capable  to  be  directed  by  antecedent,  standing,  positive  laws  than 
the  executive,  and  so  must  necessarily  be  left  to  the  prudence 


LOCKE  413 

and  wisdom  of  those  whose  hands  it  is  in,  to  be  managed  for  the 
public  good.  For  the  laws  that  concern  subjects  one  amongst 
another,  being  to  direct  their  actions,  may  well  enough  precede 
them.  But  what  is  to  be  done  in  reference  to  foreigners  depending 
much  upon  their  actions,  and  the  variation  of  designs  and  interests, 
must  be  left  in  great  part  to  the  prudence  of  those  who  have  this 
power  committed  to  them  to  be  managed  by  the  best  of  their 
skill  for  the  advantage  of  the  commonwealth. 

148.  Though,  as  I  said,  the  executive  and  federative  power 
of  every  community  be  really  distinct  in  themselves,  yet  they 
are  hardly  to  be  separated  and  placed  at  the  same  time  in  the  hands 
of  distinct  persons.     For  both  of  them  requiring  the  force  of  the 
society  for  their  exercise,  it  is  almost  impracticable  to  place  the 
force  of  the  commonwealth  in  distinct  and  not  subordinate  hands, 
or  that  the  executive  and  federative  powder  should  be  placed  in 
persons  that  might  act  separately,  whereby  the  force  of  the  public 
would  be  under  different  commands,  which  would  be  apt  some  timex 
or  other  to  cause  disorder  and  ruin.       *  ^ 

•A  • 

Ch.  xiii.     Of  the  Subordination  of  the  Powers  of  the  Common- ' 
wealth. 

149.  Though  in  a  constituted  commonwealth  standing  upon 
its  own  basis  and  acting  according  to  its  own  nature — that  is, 
acting  for  the  preservation  of  the  community,  there  can  be  but 
one  supreme  power,  which  is  the  legislative,  to  which  all  the 
rest  are  and  must  be  subordinate,  yet  the  legislative  being  only 
a  fiduciary  power  to  act  for  certain  ends,  there  remains  still  in 
the  people  a  supreme  power  to  remove  or  alter  the  legislative, 
when  they  find  the  legislative  act  contrary  to  the  trust  reposed 
in  them.     For  all  power  given  with  trust  for  the  attaining  an 
end  being  limited  by  that  end,  whenever  that  end  is  manifestly 
neglected  or  opposed,  the  trust  must  necessarily  be  forfeited,  and 
the  power  devolve  into  the  hands  of  those  that  gave  it,  who  may 
place  it  anew  where  they  shall  think  best  for  their  safety  and 
security.    And  thus  the  community  perpetually  retains  a  supreme 
power  of  saving  themselves  from  the  attempts  and  designs  of 
anybody,  even  of  their  legislators,  whenever  they  shall  be  so 
foolish  or  so  wicked  as  to  lay  and  carry  on  designs  against  the 
liberties  and  properties  of  the  subject.     For  no  man  or  society  of 
men  having  a  power  to  deliver  up  their  preservation,  or  conse- 
quergrfy  the  means  of  it,  to  the  absolute  will  and  arbitrary  domin- 
ion of  another,  whenever  any  one  shall  go  about  to  bring  them  into 
such  a  slavish  condition,  they  will  always  have  a  right  to  preserve 


414  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

what  they  have  not  a  power  to  part  with,  and  to  rid  themselves 
of  those  who  invade  this  fundamental,  sacred,  and  unalterable 
law  of  self-preservation  for  which  they  entered  into  society. 
And  thus  the  community  may  be  said  in  this  respect  to  be  always 
the  supreme  power,  but  not  as  considered  under  any  form  of 
government,  because  this  power  of  the  people  can  never  take 
place  till  the  government  be  dissolved. 

\  150.  In  all  cases  whilst  the  government  subsists,  the  legisla- 
tive is  the  supreme  power.  For  what  can  give  laws  to  another 
must  needs  be  superior  to  him,  and  since  the  legislative  is  no 
otherwise  legislative  of  the  socitey  but  by  the  right  it  has  to  make 
laws  for  all  the  parts,  and  every  member  of  the  society,  prescrib- 
ing rules  to  their  actions,  and  giving  power  of  execution  where 
they  are  transgressed,  the  legislative  must  needs  be  the  supreme, 
and  all  other  powers  in  any  members  or  parts  of  the  society 
derived  from  and  subordinate  to  it. 

151.  In  some  commonwealths  where  the  legislative  is  not 
\     always  in  being,  and  the  executive  is  vested  in  a  single  person 

who  has  also  a  share  in  the  legislative,  there  that  single  person, 
in  a  very  tolerable  sense,  may  also  be  called  supreme;  not  that  he 
has  in  himself  all  the  supreme  power,  which  is  that  of  law-making, 
but  because  he  has  in  him  the  supreme  execution,  from  whom  all 
inferior  magistrates  derive  all  their  several  subordinate  powers, 
Oi^at  least,  the  greatest  part  of  them;  having  also  no  legislative 
superior  to  him,  there  being  no  law  to  be  made  without  his  con- 
sent, which  cannot  be  expected  should  ever  subject  him  to  the 
other  part  of  the  legislative,  he  is  properly  enough  in  this  sense 
supreme.  But  yet  it  is  to  be  observed  that  though  oaths  of 
allegiance  and  fealty  are  taken  to  him,  it  is  not  to  him  as  supreme 
legislator,  but  as  supreme  executor  of  the  law  made  by  a  joint 
power  of  him  with  others,  allegiance  being  nothing  but  an  obe- 
dience according  to  law,  which,  when  he  violates,  he  has  no  right 
to  obedience,  nor  can  claim  it  otherwise  than  as  the  public  person 
vested  with  the  power  of  the  law,  and  so  is  to  be  considered  as 
the  image,  phantom,  or  representative  of  the  commonwealth, 
acted  by  the  will  of  the  society  declared  in  its  laws,  and  thus  he 
has  no  will,  no  power,  but  that  of  the  law.  But  when  he  quits 
this  representation,  this  public  will,  and  acts  by  his  own  private 
will,  he  degrades  himself,  and  is  but  a  single  private  person  without 
power  and  without  will,  that  has  no  right  to  obedience ;  the  mem- 
bers owing  no  obedience  but  to  the  public  will  of  the  society. 

152.  The  executive  power,  placed  anywhere  but  in  a  person 
\      that  has  also  a  share  in  the  legislative,  is  visibly  subordinate  and 


LOCKE  415 

accountable  to  it,  and  may  be  at  pleasure  changed  and  displaced; 
so  that  it  is  not  the  supreme  executive  power  that  is  exempt  from 
subordination,  but  the  supreme  executive  power  vested  in  one, 
who  having  a  share  in  the  legislative,  has  no  distinct  superior 
legislative  to  be  subordinate  and  accountable  to,  farther  than  he 
himself  shall  join  and  consent,  so  that  he  is  no  more  subordinate 
than  he  himself  shall  think  fit,  which  one  may  certainly  conclude 
will  be  but  very  little.  Of  other  ministerial  and  subordinate 
powers  in  a  commonwealth  we  need  not  speak,  they  being  so 
multiplied  with  infinite  variety  in  the  different  customs  and  con- 
stitutions of  distinct  commonwealths,  that  it  is  impossible  to 
give  a  particular  account  of  them  all.  Only  thus  much  which  is 
necessary  to  our  present  purpose  we  may  take  notice  of  concern- 
ing them,  that  they  have  no  manner  of  authority,  any  of  them, 
beyond  what  is  by  positive  grant  and  commission  delegated  to 
them,  and  are  all  of  them  accountable  to  some  other  power  in 
the  commonwealth. 

153.  It  is  not  necessary — no,  nor  so  much  as  convenient — 
that  the  legislative  should  be  always  in  being;  but  absolutely 
necessary  that  the  executive  power  should,  because  there  is  not 
always  need  of  new  laws  to  be  made,  but  always  need  of  execution 
of  the  laws  that  are  made.    When  the  legislative  hath  pui  the 
execution  of  the  laws  they  make  into  other  hands,  they  have  a 
power  still  to  resume  it  out  of  those  hands  when  they  find  cause, 
and  to  punish  for  any  mal-administration  against  the  laws.     The 
same  holds  also  in  regard  to  the  federative  power,  that  and  the 
executive  being  both  ministerial  and  subordinate  to  the  legislative, 
which,  as  has  been  shown,  in  a  constituted  commonwealth  is 
the  supreme.   The  legislative  also  in  this  case  being  supposed  to 
consist  of  several  persons  (for  if  it  be  a  single  person  it  cannot 
but  be  always  in  being,  and  so  will,  as  supreme,  naturally  have  the 
supreme  executive  power,  together  with  the  legislative)   may 
assemble  and  exercise  their  legislative  at  the  times  that  either 
their  original  constitution  or  their  own  adjournment  appoints,  or 
when  they  please,  if  neither  of  these  hath  appointed  any  time,  or 
there  be  no  other  way  prescribed  to  convoke  them.     For  the 
supreme  power  being  placed  in  them  by  the  people,  it  is  always 
in  them,  and  they  may  exercise  it  when  they  please,  unless  by 
their  original  constitution  they  are  limited  to  certain  seasons, 
or  by  an  act  of  their  supreme  power  they  have  adjourned  to  a 
certain  time,  and  when  that  time  comes  they  have  a  right  to 
assemble  and  act  again. 

154.  If  the  legislative,  or  any  part  of  it,  be  made  of  representa- 


416  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

tives,  chosen  for  that  time  by  the  people,  which  afterwards  return 
into  the  ordinary  state  of  subjects,  and  have  no  share  in  the  legis- 
lature but  upon  a  new  choice,  this  power  of  choosing  must  also  be 
exercised  by  the  people,  either  at  certain  appointed  seasons,  or 
else  when  they  are  summoned  to  it;  and,  in  this  latter  case,  the 
power  of  convoking  the  legislative  is  ordinarily  placed  in  the 
executive,  and  has  one  of  these  two  limitations  in  respect  of  time: 
— that  either  the  original  constitution  requires  their  assembling 
and  acting  at  certain  intervals,  and  then  the  executive  power 
does  nothing  but  ministerially  issue  directions  for  their  electing 
and  assembling  according  to  due  forms;  or  else  it  is  left  to  his 
prudence  to  call  them  by  new  elections  when  the  occasions  or 
exigencies  of  the  public  require  the  amendment  of  old  or  making 
of  new  laws,  or  the  redress  or  prevention  of  any  inconveniencies 
that  lie  on  or  threaten  the  people. 

155.  It  may  be  demanded  here,  what  if  the  executive  power, 
being  possessed  of  the  force  of  the  commonwealth,  shall  make 
use  of  that  force  to  hinder  the  meeting  and  acting  of  the  legislative, 
when  the  original  constitution  or  the  public  exigencies  require  it? 
I  say,  using  force  upon  the  people,  without  authority,  and  con- 
trary to  the  trust  put  in  him  that  does  so,  is  a  state  of  war  with 
the  people,  who  have  a  right  to  reinstate  their  legislative  in  the 
exercise  of  their  power.     For  having  erected  a  legislative  with  an 
intent  they  should  exercise  the  power  of  making  laws,  either  at 
certain  set  times,  or  when  there  is  need  of  it,  when  they  are  hindered 
by  any  force  from  what  is  so  necessary  to  the  society,  and  wherein 
the  safety  and  preservation  of  the  people  consists,  the  people  have 
a  right  to  remove  it  by  force.     In  all  states  and  conditions  the 
true  remedy  of  force  without  authority  is  to  oppose  force  to  it. 
The  use  of  force  without  authority  always  puts  him  that  uses  it 
into  a  state  of  war  as  the  aggressor,  and  renders  him  liable  to 
be  treated  accordingly. 

156.  The  power  of  assembling  and  dismissing  the  legislative, 
placed  in  the  executive,  gives  not  the  executive  a  superiority 
over  it,  but  is  a  fiduciary  trust  placed  in  him  for  the  safety  of 
the  people  in  a  case  where  the  uncertainty  and  variableness  of 
human  affairs  could  not  bear  a  steady  fixed  rule.     For  it  not  being 
possible  that  the  first  framers  of  the  government  should  by  any 
foresight  be  so  much  masters  of  future  events  as  to  be  able  to 
prefix  so  just  periods  of  return  and  duration  to  the  assemblies 
of  the  legislative,  in  all  times  to  come,  that  might  exactly  answer 
all  the  exigencies  of  the  commonwealth,  the  best  remedy  could 
be  found  for  this  defect  was  to  trust  this  to  the  prudence  of  one 


LOCKE  417 

who  was  always  to  be  present,  and  whose  business  it  was  to 
watch  over  the  public  good.  Constant,  frequent  meetings  of  the 
legislative,  and  long  continuations  of  their  assemblies,  without 
necessary  occasion,  could  not  but  be  burdensome  to  the  people, 
and  must  necessarily  in  time  produce  more  dangerous  inconven- 
iencies,  and  yet  the  quick  turn  of  affairs  might  be  sometimes 
such  as  to  need  their  present  help;  any  delay  of  their  convening 
might  endanger  the  public;  and  sometimes,  too,  their  business 
might  be  so  great  that  the  limited  time  of  their  sitting  might  be 
too  short  for  their  work,  and  rob  the  public  of  that  benefit  which 
could  be  had  only  from  their  mature  deliberation.  What,  then, 
could  be  done  in  this  case  to  prevent  the  community  from  being 
exposed  some  time  or  other  to  imminent  hazard  on  one  side  or 
the  other,  by  fixed  intervals  and  periods  set  to  the  meeting  and 
acting  of  the  legislative,  but  to  intrust  it  to  the  prudence  of  some 
who,  being  present  and  acquainted  with  the  state  of  public 
affairs,  might  make  use  of  this  prerogative  for  the  public  good? 
And  where  else  could  this  be  so  well  placed  as  in  his  hands  who 
was  intrusted  with  the  execution  of  the  laws  for  the  same  end? 
Thus,  supposing  the  regulation  of  times  for  the  assembling  and 
sitting  of  the  legislative  not  settled  by  the  original  constitution, 
it  naturally  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  executive;  not  as  an  arbi- 
trary power  depending  on  his  good  pleasure,  but  with  this  trust 
always  to  have  it  exercised  only  for  the  public  weal,  as  the  occur- 
rences of  times  and  change  of  affairs  might  require.  Whether 
settled  periods  of  their  convening,  or  a  liberty  left  to  the  prince 
for  convoking  the  legislative,  or  perhaps  a  mixture  of  both,  hath 
the  least  inconvenience  attending  it,  it  is  not  my  business  here  to 
inquire,  but  only  to  show  that,  though  the  executive  power  may 
have  the  prerogative  of  convoking  and  dissolving  such  conventions 
of  the  legislative,  yet  it  is  not  thereby  superior  to  it. 

157.  Things  of  this  world  are  in  so  constant  a  flux  that  nothing 
remains  long  in  the  same  state.  Thus  people,  riches,  trade, 
power,  change  their  stations;  flourishing  mighty  cities  come  to 
ruin,  and  prove  in  time  neglected  desolate  corners,  whilst  other 
unfrequented  places  grow  into  populous  countries  filled  with 
wealth  and  inhabitants.  But  things  not  always  changing  equally, 
and  private  interest  often  keeping  up  customs  and  privileges  when 
the  reasons  of  them  are  ceased,  it  often  comes  to  pass  that  in 
governments  where  part  of  the  legislative  consists  of  representa- 
tives chosen  by  the  people,  that  in  tract  of  time,  this  representation 
becomes  very  unequal  and  disproportionate  to  the  reasons  it 
was  at  first  established  upon.  To  what  gross  absurdities  the 


418  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

following  of  custom  when  reason  has  left  it  may  lead,  we  may  be 
satisfied  when  we  see  the  bare  name  of  a  town,  of  which  there 
remains  not  so  much  as  the  ruins,  where  scarce  so  much  housing 
as  a  sheepcote,  or  more  inhabitants  than  a  shepherd  is  to  be 
found,  send  as  many  representatives  to  the  grand  assembly  of 
law-makers  as  a  whole  county  numerous  in  people  and  powerful 
in  riches.  This  strangers  stand  amazed  at,  and  every  one  must 
confess  needs  a  remedy;  though  most  think  it  hard  to  find  one, 
because  the  constitution  of  the  legislative  being  the  original 
and  supreme  act  of  the  society,  antecedent  to  all  positive  laws  in 
it,  and  depending  wholly  on  the  people,  no  inferior  power  can 
alter  it.  And,  therefore,  the  people  when  the  legislative  is  once 
constituted,  having  in  such  a  government  as  we  have  been  speak- 
ing of,  no  power  to  act  as  long  as  the  government  stands,  this 
inconvenience  is  thought  incapable  of  a  remedy. 

158.  Solus  populi  suprema  lex  is  certainly  so  just  and  funda- 
mental a  rule,  that  he  who  sincerely  follows  it  cannot  dangerously 
err.  If,  therefore,  the  executive  who  has  the  power  of  convoking 
the  legislative,  observing  rather  the  true  proportion  than  fashion 
of  representation,  regulates  not  by  old  custom,  but  true  reason, 
the  number  of  members  in  all  places,  that  have  a  right  to  be 
distinctly  represented,  which  no  part  of  the  people,  however 
incorporated,  can  pretend  to,  but  in  proportion  to  the  assistance 
which  it  affords  to  the  public,  it  cannot  be  judged  to  have  set  up 
a  new  legislative,  but  to  have  restored  the  old  and  true  one,  and 
to  have  rectified  the  disorders  which  succession  of  time  had  in- 
sensibly as  well  as  inevitably  introduced;  for  it  being  the  interest 
as  well  as  intention  of  the  people  to  have  a  fair  and  equal 
representative,  whoever  brings  it  nearest  to  that  is  an  undoubted 
friend  to  and  establisher  of  the  government,  and  cannot  miss 
the  consent  and  approbation  of  the  community;  prerogative 
being  nothing  but  a  power  in  the  hands  of  the  prince  to  provide 
for  the  public  good  in  such  cases  which,  depending  upon  unforeseen 
and  uncertain  occurrences,  certain  and  unalterable  laws  could 
not  safely  direct.  Whatsoever  shall  be  done  manifestly  for  the 
good  of  the  people,  and  the  establishing  the  government  upon  its 
true  foundations,  is,  and  always  will  be,  just  prerogative.  The 
power  of  erecting  new  corporations,  and  therewith  new  representa- 
tives, carries  with  it  a  supposition  that  in  time  the  measures  of 
representation  might  vary,  and  those  have  a  just  right  to  be  repre- 
sented which  before  had  none;  and  by  the  same  reason,  those  cease 
to  have  a  right,  and  be  too  inconsiderable  for  such  a  privilege, 
which  before  had  it.  It  is  not  a  change  from  the  present  state 


LOCKE  419 

which,  perhaps,  corruption  or  decay  has  introduced,  that  makes 
an  inroad  upon  the  government,  but  the  tendency  of  it  to  injure 
or  oppress  the  people,  and  to  set  up  one  part  or  party  with  a 
distinction  from  and  an  unequal  subjection  of  the  rest.  What- 
soever cannot  but  be  acknowledged  to  be  of  advantage  to  the 
society  and  people  in  general,  upon  just  and  lasting  measures, 
will  always,  when  done,  justify  itself;  and  whenever  the  people 
shall  choose  their  representatives  upon  just  and  undeniably  equal 
measures,  suitable  to  the  original  frame  of  the  government,  it 
cannot  be  doubted  to  be  the  will  and  act  of  the  society,  whoever 

permitted  or  caused  them  so  to  do. 

& 

5.     The  Right  of  Revolution* 
Ch.  xvii.     Of  Usurpation. 

197.  As   conquest  may  be  called  a  foreign  usurpation,   so 
usurpation  is  a  kind  of  domestic  conquest,  with  this  difference — 
that  an  usurper  can  never  have  right  on  his  side,  it  being  no 
usurpation  but  where  one  is  got  into  the  possession  of  what 
another  has  right  to.     This,  so  far  as  it  is  usurpation,  is  a  change 
only  of  persons,  but  not  of  the  forms  and  rules  of  the  government; 
for  if  the  usurper  extend  his  power  beyond  what,  of  right,  belonged 
to  the  lawful  princes  or  governors  of  the  commonwealth,  it  is 
tyranny  added  to  usurpation. 

198.  In  all  lawful  governments  the  designation  of  the  persons 
who  are  to  bear  rule  is  as  natural  and  necessary  a  part  as  the 
form  of  the  government  itself,  and  is  that  which  had  its  estab- 
lishment originally  from  the  people — the  anarchy  being  much  alike 
to  have  no  form  of  government  at  all,  or  to  agree  that  it  shall  be 
monarchical,  but  to  appoint  no  way  to  design  the  person  that  shall 
have  the  power,  and  be  the  monarch.     Hence  all  commonwealths, 
with  the  form  of  government  established,  have  rules  also  of  appoint- 
ing those  who  are  to  have  any  share  in  the  public  authority  and 
settled  methods  of  conveying  the  right  to  them.    .    .    .    Whoever 
gets  into  the  exercise  of  any  part  of  the  power  by  other  ways 
than  what  the  laws  of  the  community  have  prescribed  hath  no 
right  to  be  obeyed,  though  the  form  of  the  commonwealth  be 
still   preserved,  since  he  is   not  the  person   the  laws  have   ap- 
pointed, and  consequently,  not  the  person  the  people  have  con- 
sented to.     Nor  can  such  an  usurper,  or  any  deriving  from  him, 
ever  have  a  title  till  the  people  are  both  at  liberty  to  consent,  and 
have  actually  consented,  to  allow  and  confirm  in  him  the  power 
he  hath  till  then  usurped. 

JBk.  II,  chs.  xvii-xviii,  xix  (in  part). 


420  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Ch.  xviii.     Of  Tyranny. 

199.  As  usurpation  is  the  exercise  of  power  which  another 
hath  a  right  to,  so  tyranny  is  the  exercise  of  .jDpwer  beyond  right, 
which  nobody  can" have  a  right  to;  and  this  is  making  use  of  the 
power  any  one  has  in  his  hands,  not  for  the  good  of  those  who  are 
under    it,  but  for  his  own   private,  separate    advantage:  when 
the  governor,  however  entitled,  makes  not  the  law,  but  his  will, 
the  rule,  and  his  commands  and  actions  are  not  directed  to  the 
preservation  of  the  properties  of  his  people,  but  the  satisfaction 
of  his  own  ambition,  revenge,  covetousness,  or  any  other  irregular 
passiorrT"" 

200.  If  one  can  doubt  this  to  be  truth  or  reason  because  it 
comes  from  the  obscure  hand  of  a  subject,  I  hope  the  authority 
of  a  king  will  make  it  pass  with  him.     King  James,  in  his  speech  to 
the  Parliament,  1603,  tells  them  thus:  "I  will  ever  prefer  the  weal 
of  the  public  and  of  the  whole  commonwealth,  in  making  of  good 
laws  and  constitutions,  to  any  particular  and  private  ends  of 
mine,  thinking  ever  the  wealth  and  weal  of  the  commonwealth 
to  be  my  greatest  weal  and  worldly  felicity — a  point  wherein  a 
lawful  king  doth  directly  differ  from  a  tyrant;  for  I  do  acknowledge 
that  the  special  and  greatest  point  of  difference  that  is  between  a 
rightful  king  and  an  usurping  tyrant  is  this — that  whereas  the 
proud  and  ambitious  tyrant  doth  think  his  kingdom  and  people 
are  only  ordained  for  satisfaction  of  his  desires  and  unreasonable 
appetites,  the  righteous  and  just  king  doth,  by  the  contrary, 
acknowledge  himself  to  be  ordained  for  the  procuring  of  the  wealth 
and  property  of  his  people."    And  again,  in  his  speech  to  the 
Parliament,  1609,  he  hath  these  words:  "The  king  binds  himself, 
by  a  double  oath,  to  the  observation  of  the  fundamental  laws  of 
his  kingdom — tacitly,  as  by  being  a  king,  and  so  bound  to  protect, 
as  well  the  people  as  the  laws  of  his  kingdom;  and  expressly  by  his 
oath  at  his  coronation ;  so  as  every  just  king,  in  a  settled  kingdom, 
is  bound  to  observe  that  paction  made  to  his  people,  by  his  laws, 
in  framing  his  government    agreeable   thereunto,  according   to 
that  paction  which  God  made  with  Noah  after  the  deluge :  '  Here- 
after, seed-time,  and  harvest,  and  cold,  and  heat,  and  summer, 
and  winter,  and  day,  and  night,  shall  not  cease  while  the  earth 
remaineth.'     And  therefore  a  king,  governing  in  a  settled  kingdom, 
leaves  to  be  a  king,  and  degenerates  into  a  tyrant,  as  soon  as  he 
leaves  off  to  rule  according  to  his  laws."    And  a  little  after: 
"Therefore,  all  kings  that  are  not  tyrants,  or  perjured,  will  be 
glad  to  bound  themselves  within  the  limits  of  their  laws,  and  they 
that  persuade  them  the  contrary  are  vipers,  pests,  both  against 


LOCKE  421 

them  and  the  commonwealth."  Thus,  that  learned  king,  who 
well  understood  the  notions  of  things,  makes  the  difference  be- 
twixt a  king  and  a  tyrant  to  consist  only  in  this:  that  one  makes 
the  laws  the  bounds  of  his  power  and  the  good  of  the  public  the 
end  of  his  government;  the  other  makes  all  give  way  to  his  own 
will  and  appetite. 

201.  It  is  a  mistake  to  think  this  fault  is  proper  only  to  mon- 
archies.    Other  forms  of  government  are  liable  to  it  as  well  asx 
that;  for  wherever  the  power  that  is  put  in  any  hands  for  the 
government  of  the  people  and  the  preservation  of  their  properties 
is  applied  to  other  ends,  and  made  use  of  to  impoverish,  harass, 
or  subdue  them  to  the  arbitrary  and  irregular  commands  of  those 
that  have  it,  there.it  presently  becomes  tyranny,  whether  those 
that  thus  use  it  are  one  or  many.     Thus  we  read  of  the  thirty 
tyrants  at  Athens,  as  well  as  one  at  Syracuse;  and  the  intolerable 
dominion  of  the  Decemviri  at  Rome  was  nothing  better.  •  / 

202.  Wherever  law  endst  tyranny  begins,  if  the  law  be  trans-  " 
gressed  to'linother's  harm;  and  whosoever  in  authority  exceeds 
the.  power  given  him  by  the  law,  and  makes  use  of  the  force  he 
has  under  his  command  to  compass  that  upon  the  subject  which 
the  law  allows  not,  ceases  in  that  to  be  a  magistrate,  and  acting 
without  authority  may  be  opposed,  as  any  other  man  who  by 
force  invades  the  right  of  another!    This  is  acknowledged  in 
subordinate  magistrates.     He  that  nath  authority  to  seize  my 
person  in  the  street  may  be  opposed  as  a  thief  and  a  robber  if 
he  endeavors  to  break  into  my  housj*  to  execute  a  writ,  notwith- 
standing that  I  know  he  has  such  a  warrant  and  such  a  legal 
authority  as  will  empower  him  to  arrest  me  abroad.     And  why 
this  should  not  hold  in  the  highest,  as  well  as  in  the  most  inferior 
magistrate,  I  would  gladly  be  informed.     Is  it  reasonable  that 
the  eldest  brother,  because  he  has  the  greatest  part  of  his  father's 
estate,  should  thereby  have  a  right  to  take  away  any  of  his  younger 
brother's  portions?     Or,  that  a  rich  man,  who  possessed  a  whole 
country,  should  from  thence  have  a  right  to  seize,  when  he  pleased, 
the  cottage  and  garden  of  his  poor  neighbor?     The  being  right- 
fully possessed  of  great  power  and  riches,  exceedingly  beyond 
the  greatest  part  of  the  sons  of  Adam,  is  so  far  from  being  an  excuse, 
much  less  a  reason  for  rapine  and  oppression,  which  the  endamag- 
ing  another  without  authority  is,  that  it  is  a  great  aggravation' 
of  it.    For  the  exceeding  the  bounds  of  authority  is  no  more  a  right 

in  a  great  than  a  petty  officer,  no  more  justifiable  in  a  king  than 
a  constable;  but  is  so  much  the  worse  in  him  in  that  he  has  more 
trust  put  in  him,  has  already  a  much  greater  share  than  the  rest 


422  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

of  his  brethren  and  is  supposed,  from  the  advantages  of  his  ed- 
ucation, employment  and  counsellors,  to  be  more  knowing  in  the 
measure  of  right  and  wrong. 

203.  May   the   commands,   then,   of  a  prince   be   opposed? 
May  he  be  resisted,  as  often  as  any  one  shall  find  himself  aggrieved, 
and  but  imagine  he  has  not  right  done  him?     This  will  unhinge 
and  overturn  all  polities,  and  instead  of  government  and  order, 
leave  nothing  but  anarchy  and  confusion. 

204.  To  this  I  answer:  That  force  is  to  be  opposed  to  nothing 
but  to  unjust  and  unlawful  force.    Whoever  makes  any  opposi- 
tion in  any  other  case  draws  on  himself  a  just  condemnation, 
both  from  God  and  man;  and  so  no  such  danger  or  confusion  will 
follow,  as  is  often  suggested.     For —  ^ 

205.  First.     As  in  some  countries  the  person  of  the  prince  by 
the  law  is  sacred,  and  so  whatever  he  commands  or  does,  his 
person  is  still  free  from  all  question  or  violence,  not  liable  to  force, 
or  any  judicial  censure  or  condemnation.     But  yet  opposition  may 
be  made  to  the  illegal  acts  of  any  inferior  officer  or  other  commis- 
sioned by  him,  unless  he  will,  by  actually  putting  himself  into  a 
state  of  war  with  his  people,  dissolve  the  government,  and  leave 
them  to  that  defense  whiph  belongs  to  every  one  in  the  state  of 
nature.     For  of  such  things,  who  can  tell  what  the  end  will  be? 
And  a  neighbor  kingdom  has  shown  the  world  an  odd  example. 
In  all  other  cases  the  sacredness  of  the  person  exempts  him  from 
all  inconveniencies,  whereby  he  is  secure,  whilst  the  government 
stands,  from  all  violence  and  .harm  whatsoever,  than  which  there 
cannot  be  a  wiser  constitution.     For  the  harm  he  can  do  in  his 
own  person  not  being  likely  to  happen  often,  nor  to  extend  itself 
far,  nor  being  able  by  his  single  strength  to  subvert  the  laws  nor 
oppress  the  body  of  the  people,  should  any  prince  have  so  much 
weakness   and  ill-nature  as   to  be  willing   to  do   it,  the  incon- 
veniency  of  some  particular  mischiefs  that  may  happen  some- 
times when  a  heady  prince  comes  to  the  throne  are  well  recom- 
pensed by  the  peace  of  the  public  and  security  of  the  government 
in  the  person  of  the  chief  magistrate,  thus  set  out  of  the  reach  of 
danger;  it  being  safer  for  the  body  that  some  few  private  men 
should  be  sometimes  in  danger  to  suffer  than  that  the  head  of  the 
republic  should  be  easily  and  upon  slight  occasions  exposed. 

206.  Secondly.     But   this   privilege,    belonging   only   to   the 
king's  person,  hinders  not  but  they  may  be  questioned,  opposed, 
and  resisted,  who  use  unjust  force,  though  they  pretend  a  com- 
mission from  him  which  the  law  authorizes  not;  as  is  plain  in 
the  case  of  him  that  has  the  king's  writ  to  arrest  a  man,  which  is  a 


LOCKE  423 

full  commission  from  the  king,  and  yet  ne  that  has  it  cannot  break 
open  a  man's  house  to  do  it,  nor  execute  this  command  of  the  king 
upon  certain  days  nor  in  certain  places,  though  this  commission 
have  no  such  exception  in  it;  but  they  are  the  limitations  of  the 
law,  which,  if  any  one  transgress,  the  king's  commission  excuses 
him  not.  For  the  king's  authority  being  given  him  only  by  the 
law,  he  cannot  empower  any  one  to  act  against  the  law,  or  justify 
him  by  his  commission  in  so  doing.  The  commission,  or  command 
of  any  magistrate  where  he  has  no  authority,  being  as  void  and 
insignificant  as  that  of  any  private  man,  the  difference  between  the 
one  and  the  other  being  that  the  magistrate  has  some  authority 
so  far  and  to  such  ends,  and  the  private  man  has  none  at  all;  for 
it  is  not  the  commission  but  the  authority  that  gives  the  right  of 
acting,  and  against  the  laws  there  can  be  no  authority.  But 
notwithstanding  such  resistance,  the  king's  person  and  authority 
are  still  both  secured,  and  so  no  danger  to  governor  or  government. 
207.  Thirdly.  Supposing  a  government  wherein  the  person 
of  the  chief  magistrate  is  not  thus  sacred,  yet  this  doctrine  of 
the  lawfulness  of  resisting  all  unlawful  exercises  of  his  power 
will  not,  upon  every  slight  occasion,  endanger  him  or  embroil  the 
government;  for  where  the  injured  party  may  be  relieved  and  his 
damages  repaired  by  appeal  to  the  law,  there  can  be  no  pretense 
for  force,  which  is  only  to  be  used  where  a  man  is  intercepted 
from  appealing  to  the  law.  For  nothing  is  to  be  accounted  hostile 
force  but  where  it  leaves  not  the  remedy  of  such  an  appeal,  and 
it  is  such  force  alone  that  puts  him  that  uses  it  into  a  state  of 
war,  and  makes  it  lawful  to  resist  him.  A  man  with  a  sword 
in  his  hand  demands  my  purse  in  the  highway,  when  perhaps  I 
have  not  i2d.  in  my  pocket.  This  man  I  may  lawfully  kill. 
To  another  I  deliver  £100  to  hold  only  whilst  I  alight,  which  he 
refuses  to  restore  me  when  I  am  got  up  again,  but  draws  his  sword 
to  defend  the  possession  of  it  by  force,  if  I  endeavor  to  retake  it. 
The  mischief  this  man  does  me  is  a  hundred,  or  possibly  a  thousand 
times  more  than  the  other  perhaps  intended  me  (whom  I  killed 
before  he  really  did  me  any);  and  yet  I  might  lawfully  kill  the 
one  and  cannot  so  much  as  hurt  the  other  lawfully.  The  reason 
whereof  is  plain;  because  the  one  using  force  which  threatened 
my  life,  I  could  not  have  time  to  appeal  to  the  law  to  secure  it, 
and  when  it  was  gone  it  was  too  late  to  appeal.  The  law  could 
not  restore  life  to  my  dead  carcass.  The  loss  was  irreparable; 
which  to  prevent  the  law  of  nature  gave  me  a  right  to  destroy  him 
who  had  put  himself  into  a  state  of  war  with  me  and  threatened 
my  destruction.  But  in  the  other  case,  my  life  not  being  in  danger, 


424  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

I  might  have  the  benefit  of  appealing  to  the  law,  and  have  repara- 
tion for  my  £100  that  way. 

208.  Fourthly.    But  if  the  unlawful  acts  done  by  the  magis- 
trate be  maintained  (by  the  power  he  has  got),  and  the  remedy, 
which  is  due  by  law,  be  by  the  same  power  obstructed,  yet  the 
right  of  resisting,  even  in  such  manifest  acts  of  tyranny,  will  not 
suddenly,  or  on  slight  occasions,  disturb  the  government.     For  if 
it  reach  no  farther  than  some  private  men's  cases,  though  they  have 
a  right  to  defend  themselves,  and  to  recover  by  force  what  by 
unlawful  force  is  taken  from  them,  yet  the  right  to  do  so  will  not 
easily  engage  them  in  a  contest  wherein  they  are  sure  to  perish; 
it  being  as  impossible  for  one  or  a  few  oppressed  men  to  disturb 
the  government,  where  the  body  of  the  people  do  not  think  them- 
selves concerned  in  it,  as  for  a  raving  madman  or  heady  malcon- 
tent to  overturn  a  well-settled  state,  the  people  being  as  little 
apt  to  follow  the  one  as  the  other. 

209.  But  if  either  these  illegal  acts  have  extended  to  the 
majority  of  the  people,  or  if  the  mischief  and  oppression  has 
lighted  only  on  some  few,  but  in  such  cases  as  the  precedent  and 
consequences  seem  to  threaten  all,  and  they  are  persuaded  in 
their  consciences  that  their  laws,  and  with  them,  their  estates, 
liberties,  and  lives  are  in  danger,  and  perhaps  their  religion  too, 
how  they  will  be  hindered  from  resisting  illegal  force  used  against 
them  I  cannot  tell.     This  is  an  inconvenience,  I  confess,  that 
attends  all  governments  whatsoever,  when  the  governors  have 
brought  it  to  this  pass,  to  be  generally  suspected  of  their  people, 
the  most  dangerous  state  they  can  possibly  put  themselves  in; 
wherein  they  are  the  less  to  be  pitied,  because  it  is  so  easy  to  be 
avoided;    it  being  as  impossible  for  a  governor,  if    he    really 
means  the  good  of  his  people,  and  the  preservation  of  them  and 
their  laws  together,  not  to  make  them  see  and  feel  it,  as  it  is  for 
the  father  of  a  family  not  to  let  his  children  see  he  loves  and 
takes  care  of  them. 

210.  But  if  all  the  world  shall  observe  pretenses  of  one  kind, 
and  actions  of  another,  arts  used  to  elude  the  law,  and  the  trust 
of  prerogative  (which  is  an  arbitrary  power  in  some  things  left 
in  the  prince's  hand  to  do  good,  not  harm,  to  the  people)  employed 
contrary  to  the  end  for  which  it  was  given;  if  the  people  shall  find 
the  ministers  and  subordinate  magistrates  chosen,  suitable  to 
such  ends,  and  favored  or  laid  by  proportionably  as  they  pro- 
mote or  oppose  them;  if  they  see  several  experiments  made  of 
arbitrary  power,  and   that  religion   underhand  favored,  though 
publicly  proclaimed  against,  which  is  readiest  to  introduce  it, 


LOCKE  425 

and  the  operators  in  it  supported  as  much  as  may  be;  and  when 
that  cannot  be  done,  yet  approved  still,  and  liked  the  better, 
and  a  long  train  of  acting  show  the  councils  all  tending  that  way, 
how  can  a  man  any  more  hinder  himself  from  being  persuaded 
in  his  own  mind  which  way  things  are  going,  or,  from  casting 
about  how  to  save  himself,  than  he  could  from  believing  the  cap- 
tain of  a  ship  he  was  in  was  carrying  him  and  the  rest  of  the 
company  to  Algiers,  when  he  found  him  always  steering  that 
course,  though  cross  winds,  leaks  in  his  ship,  and  want  of  men 
and  provisions  did  often  force  him  to  turn  his  course  another 
way  for  some  time,  which  he  steadily  returned  to  again  as  soon 
as  the  wind,  weather,  and  other  circumstances  would  let  him? 

ft: 

Ch.  xix.     Of  the  Dissolution  of  Governments. 

211.  He  that  will,  with  any  clearness,  speak  of  the  dissolution 
of  government,  ought  in  the  first  place  to  distinguish  between 
the  dissolution  of  the  society  and  the  dissolution  of  the  govern- 
ment.    That  which  makes  the  community,  and  brings  men  out 
of  the  loose  state  of  nature  into  one  politic  society,  is  the  agree- 
ment which  every  one  has  with  the  rest  to  incorporate  and  act 
as  one  body,  and  so  be  one  distinct  commonwealth.     The  usual, 
and  almost  only  way  whereby  this  union  is  dissolved,  is  the  inroad 
of  foreign  force  making  a  conquest  upon  them.     For  in  that  case 
(not  being  able  to  maintain  and  support  themselves  as  one  entire 
and  independent  body)  the  union  belonging  to  that  body,  which 
consisted  therein,  must  necessarily  cease,  and  so  every  one  return 
to  the  state  he  was  in  before,  with  a  liberty  to  shift  for  himself 
and  provide  for  his  own  safety,  as  he  thinks  fit,  in  some  other 
society.     Whenever  the  society  is  dissolved,  it  is  certain  the 
government  of  that  society  cannot  remain.     Thus  conquerors' 
swords   often   cut  up   governments  by  the  roots,   and  mangle 
societies  to  pieces,  separating  the  subdued  or  scattered  multitude 
from  the  protection  of  and  dependence  on  that  society  which 
ought  to  have  preserved  them  from  violence.     The  world  is  too 
well  instructed  in,  and  too  forward  to  allow  of,  this  way  of  dissolving 
of  governments,  to  need  any  more  to  be  said  of  it;  and  there  wants 
not  much  argument  to  prove  that  where  the  society  is  dissolved, 
the  government  cannot  remain;  that  being  as  impossible  as  for 
the  frame  of  a  house  to  subsist  when  the  materials  of  it  are  scattered 
and  displaced  by  a  whirlwind,  or  jumbled  into  a  confused  heap 
by  an  earthquake. 

212.  Besides    this    overturning    from   without,    governments 
are  dissolved  from  within: 


READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

First,  when  the  legislative  is  altered.  Civil  society  being  a 
state  of  peace  amongst  those  who  are  of  it,  from  whom  the  state 
of  war  is  excluded  by  the  umpirage  which  they  have  provided 
in  their  legislative  for  the  ending  all  differences  that  may  arise 
amongst  any  of  them,  it  is  in  their  legislative  that  the  members  of 
a  commonwealth  are  united  and  combined  together  into  one  co- 
herent living  body.  This  is  the  soul  that  gives  form,  life,  and 
unity  to  the  commonwealth;  from  hence  the  several  members 
have  their  mutual  influence,  sympathy,  and  connection;  and 
therefore  when  the  legislative  is  broken,  or  dissolved,  dissolution 
and  death  follows.  For  the  essence  and  union  of  the  society  con- 
sisting in  having  one  will,  the  legislative,  when  once  established 
by  the  majority,  has  the  declaring  and,  as  it  were,  keeping  of 
that  will.  ./The  constitution  of  the  legislative  is  the  first  and 
fundamental  act  of  society,  whereby  provision  is  made  for  the 
continuation  of  their  union  under  the  direction  of  persons  and 
bonds  of  laws,  made  by  persons  authorized  thereunto,  by  the  con- 
sent and  appointment  of  the  people,  without  which  no  one  man, 
or  number  of  men,  amongst  them  can  have  authority  of  making 
laws  that  shall  be  binding  to  the  rest.  When  any  one,  or  more, 
shall  take  upon  them  to  make  laws,  whom  the  people  have  not 
appointed  so  to  do,  they  make  laws  without  authority,  which  the 
people  are  not  therefore  bound  to  obey;  by  which  means  they 
come  again  to  be  out  of  subjection,  and  may  constitute  them- 
selves a  new  legislative,  as  they  think  best,  being  in  full  liberty 
to  resist  the  force  of  those  who,  without  authority,  would  impose 
anything  upon  them.  Every  one  is  at  the  disposure  of  his  own 
will,  when  those  who  had,  by  the  delegation  of  the  society,  the 
declaring  of  the  public  will,  are  excluded  from  it,  and  others 
usurp  the  place,  who  have  no  such  authority  or  delegation. 

213.  This  being  usually  brought  about  by  such  in  the  com- 
monwealth, who  misuse  the  power  they  have,  it  is  hard  to  con- 
sider it  aright,  and  know  at  whose  door  to  lay  it,  without  knowing 
the  form  of  government  in  which  it  happens.     Let  us  suppose, 
then,  the  legislative  placed  in  the  concurrence  of  three  distinct 
persons: — First,  a  single  hereditary  person  having  the  constant, 
supreme,  executive  power,  and  with  it  the  power  of  convoking 
and   dissolving  the  other  two  within   certain  periods  of  time. 
Secondly,  an  assembly  of  hereditary  nobility.     Thirdly,  an  assem- 
bly of  representatives  chosen,  pro  tempore,  by  the  people.    Such  a 
form  of  government  supposed,  it  is  evident — 

214.  First,  that  when  such  a  single  person  or  prince  sets  up 
his  own  arbitrary  will  in  place  of  the  laws  which  are  the  will 


LOCKE  427 

of  the  society  declared  by  the  legislative,  then  the  legislative  is 
changed.  For  that  being,  in  effect,  the  legislative  whose  rules 
and  laws  are  put  in  execution,  and  required  to  be  obeyed,  when 
other  laws  are  set  up,  and  other  rules  pretended  and  enforced 
than  what  the  legislative,  constituted  by  the  society,  have  enacted, 
it  is  plain  that  the  legislative  is  changed.  Whoever  introduces 
new  laws,  not  being  thereunto  authorized,  by  the  fundamental 
appointment  of  the  society,  or  subverts  the  old,  disowns  and  over- 
turns the  power  by  which  they  were  made,  and  so  sets  up  a  new 
legislative. 

215.  Secondly,  when  the  prince  hinders  the  legislative  from 
assembling  in  its  due  time,  or  from  acting  freely,  pursuant  to  ' 
those  ends  for  which  it  was  constituted,  the  legislative  is  altered. 
For  it  is  not  a  certain  number  of  men — no,  nor  their  meeting, 
unless  they  have  also  freedom  of  debating  and  leisure  of  perfecting 
what  is  for  the  good  of  the  society,  wherein  the  legislative  consists ; 
when  these  are  taken  away,  or  altered,  so  as  to  deprive  the  society 
of  the  due  exercise  of  their  power,  the  legislative  is  truly  altered. 
For  it  is  not  names  that  constitute  governments,  but  the  use  and 
exercise  of  those  powers  that  were  intended  to  accompany  them; 
so  that  he  who  takes  away  the  freedom  or  hinders  the  acting 
of  the  legislative  in  its  due  seasons,  in  effect  takes  away  the  legis- 
lative, and  puts  an  end  to  the  government. 

216.  Thirdly,  when,  by  the  arbitrary  power  of  the  prince, 
the  electors  or  ways  of  election  are  altered  without  the  consent 
and  contrary  to  the  common  interest  of  the  .people,  there  also 
the  legislative  is  altered.     For  if  others  than  those  whom  the 
society  hath  authorized  thereunto  do  choose,  or  in  another  way 
than  what  the  society  hath  prescribed,  those  chosen  are  not  the 
legislative  appointed  by  the  people. 

217.  Fourthly,  the  delivery  also  of  the  people  into  the  sub- 
jection of  a  foreign  power,  either  by  the  prince  or  by  the  legis- 
lative, is  certainly  a  change  of  the  legislative,  and  so  a  dissolution 
of  the  government.     For  the  end  why  people  entered  into  society 
being  to  be  preserved  one  entire,  free,  independent  society,  to 
be  governed  by  its  own  laws,  this  is  lost  whenever  they  are  given 
up  into  the  power  of  another. 

218.  Why,   in   such   a  constitution   as   this,   the   dissolution 
of  the  government  in  these  cases  is  to  be  imputed  to  the  prince 
is  evident;  because  he,  having  the  force,  treasure,  and  offices 
of  the  state  to  employ,  and  often  persuading  himself  or  being 
flattered  by  others,  that,  as  supreme  magistrate,  he  is  incapable 
of  control;  he  alone  is  in  a  condition  to  make  great  advances 


428  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

towards  such  changes  under  pretense  of  lawful  authority,  and 
has  it  in  his  hands  to  terrify  or  suppress  opposers  as  factious, 
seditious,  and  enemies  to  the  government;  whereas  no  other  part 
of  the  legislative,  or  people,  is  capable  by  themselves  to  attempt 
any  alteration  of  the  legislative  without  open  and  visible  re- 
bellion, apt  enough  to  be  taken  notice  of,  which,  when  it  prevails, 
produces  effects  very  little  different  from  foreign  conquest. 
Besides,  the  prince,  in  such  a  form  of  government,  having  the 
power  of  dissolving  the  other  parts  of  the  legislative,  and  thereby 
rendering  them  private  persons,  they  can  never,  in  opposition 
to  him,  or  without  his  concurrence,  alter  the  legislative  by  a  law, 
his  consent  being  necessary  to  give  any  of  their  decrees  that 
sanction.  But  yet  so  far  as  the  other  parts  of  the  legislative 
any  way  contribute  to  any  attempt  upon  the  government,  and  do 
either  promote,  or  not,  what  lies  in  them,  hinder  such  designs, 
they  are  guilty,  and  partake  in  this,  which  is  certainly  the  greatest 
crime  men  can  be  guilty  of  one  towards  another. 

219.  There  is  one  way  more  whereby  such  a  government 
may  be  dissolved,  and  that  is,  when  he  who  has  the  supreme 
executive  power  neglects  and  abandons  that  charge,  so  that  the 
laws  already  made  can  no  longer  be  put  in  execution;  this  is 
demonstratively  to  reduce  all  to  anarchy,  and  so  effectually  to 
dissolve  the  government.     For  laws  not  being  made  for  themselves, 
but  to  be,  by  their  execution,  the  bonds  of  the  society  to  keep  every 
part  of  the  body  politic  in  its  due  place  and  function,  when  that 
totally  ceases,  the  government  visibly  ceases,  and  the  people 
become  a  confused  multitude  without  order  or  connection.     Where 
there  is  no  longer  the  administration  of  justice  for  the  securing  of 
men's  rights,  nor  any  remaining  power  within  the  community  to 
direct  the  force,  or  provide  for  the  necessities  of  the  public,  there 
certainly  is  no  government  left.     Where  the  laws  cannot  be  exe- 
cuted it  is  all  one  as  if  there  were  no  laws,  and  a  government  with- 
out laws  is,  I  suppose,  a  mystery  in  politics  inconceivable  to  human 
capacity,  and  inconsistent  with  human  society. 

220.  In  these,  and  the  like  cases,  when  the  government  is 
dissolved,  the  people  are  at  liberty  to  provide  for  themselves 
by  erecting  a  new  legislative  differing  from  the  other  by  the 
change  of  persons,  or  form,  or  both,  as  they  shall  find  it  most 
for  their  safety  and  good.     For  the  society  can  never,  by  the 
fault  of  another,  lose  the  native  and  original  right  it  has  to  pre- 
serve itself,  which  can  only  be  done  by  a  settled  legislative  and 
a  fair  and  impartial  execution  of  the  laws  made  by  it.     But  the 
state  of  mankind  is  not  so  miserable  that  they  are  not  capable  of 


LOCKE  429 

using  this  remedy  till  it  be  too  late  to  look  for  any.  To  tell  people 
they  may  provide  for  themselves  by  erecting  a  new  legislative, 
when,  by  oppression,  artifice,  or  being  delivered  over  to  a  foreign 
power,  their  old  one  is  gone,  is  only  to  tell  them  they  may  expect 
relief  when  it  is  too  late,  and  the  evil  is  past  cure.  This  is,  in 
effect,  no  more  than  to  bid  them  first  be  slaves,  and  then  to  take 
care  of  their  liberty,  and  when  their  chains  are  on,  tell  them 
they  may  act  like  free  men.  This,  if  barely  so,  is  rather  mockery 
than  relief,  and  men  can  never  be  secure  from  tyranny  if  there 
be  no  means  to  escape  it  till  they  are  perfectly  under  it;  and, 
therefore,  it  is  that  they  have  not  only  a  right  to  get  out  of  it, 
but  to  prevent  it. 

221.  There   is,    therefore,    secondly,    another   way   whereby 
governments  are  dissolved,  and  that  is,  when  the  legislative, 
or  the  prince,  either  of  them  act  contrary  to  their  trust. 

First:  the  legislative  acts  against  the  trust  reposed  in  them 
when  they  endeavor  to  invade  the  property  of  the  subject,  and 
to  make  themselves,  or  any  part  of  the  community,  masters  or 
arbitrary  disposers  of  the  lives,  liberties,  or  fortunes  of  the  people. 

222.  The  reason  why  men  enter  into  society  is  the  preserva- 
tion of  their  property;  and  the  end  while  they  choose  and  authorize 
a  legislative  is  that  there  may  be  laws  made,  and  rules  set,  as 
guards  and  fences  to  the  properties  of  all  the  society,  to  limit  the 
power,  and  moderate  the  dominion  of  every  part  and  member 
of  the  society.     For  since  it  can  never  be  supposed  to  be  the  will 
of  the  society  that  the  legislative  should  have  a  power  to  destroy 
that  which  every  one  designs  to  secure  by  entering  into  society, 
and  for  which  the  people  submitted  themselves  to  legislators  of 
their  own  making;   whenever  the   legislators   endeavor  to  take 
away  and  destroy  the  property  of  the  people,  or  to  reduce  them  to 
slavery  under  arbitrary  power,  they  put  themselves  into  a  state 
of  war  with  the  people,  who  are  thereupon  absolved  from  any 
farther  obedience,  and  are  left  to  the  common  refuge  which  God 
hath  provided  for  all  men  against  force  and  violence.     Whenso- 
ever, therefore,  the  legislative  shall  transgress  this  fundamental 
rule  of  society,  and  either  by  ambition,  fear,  folly,  or  corruption, 
endeavor  to  grasp  themselves,  or  put  into  the  hands  of  any  other, 
an  absolute  power  over  the  lives,  liberties,  and  estates  of  the  people, 
by  this  breach  of  trust  they  forfeit  the  power  the  people  had  put 
into  their  hands  for  quite  contrary  ends,  and  it  devolves  to  the 
people,  who  have  a  right  to  resume  their  original  liberty,  and  by 
the  establishment  of  a  new  legislative  (such  as  they  shall  think 
fit),  provide  for  their  own  safety  and  security,  which  is  the  end 


430  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

for  which  they  are  in  society.  What  I  have  said  here  concerning 
the  legislative  in  general  holds  true  also  concerning  the  supreme 
executor,  who  having  a  double  trust  put  in  him,  both  to  have  a 
part  in  the  legislative  and  the  supreme  execution  of  the  law,  acts 
against  both,  when  he  goes  about  to  set  up  his  own  arbitrary 
will  as  the  law  of  the  society.  He  acts  also  contrary  to  his  trust 
when  he  employs  the  force,  treasure,  and  offices  of  the  society 
to  corrupt  the  representatives,  and  gain  them  to  his  purposes; 
when  he  openly  pre-engages  the  electors,  and  prescribes,  to  their 
choice,  such  whom  he  has,  by  solicitation,  threats,  promises,  or 
otherwise,  won  to  his  designs,  and  employs  them  to  bring  in  such 
who  have  promised  beforehand  what  to  vote  and  what  to  enact. 
Thus  to  regulate  candidates  and  electors,  and  new-model  the 
ways  of  election,  what  is  it  but  to  cut  up  the  government  by  the 
roots,  and  poison  the  very  fountain  of  public  security?  For  the 
people  having  reserved  to  themselves  the  choice  of  their  repre- 
sentatives as  the  fence  to  their  properties,  could  do  it  for  no 
other  end  but  that  they  might  always  be  freely  chosen,  and  so 
chosen,  freely  act  and  advise  as  the  necessity  of  the  commonwealth 
and  the  public  good  should,  upon  examination  and  mature  debate, 
be  judged  to  require.  This,  those  who  give  their  votes  before 
they  hear  the  debate,  and  have  weighed  the  reasons  on  all  sides, 
are  not  capable  of  doing.  To  prepare  such  an  assembly  as  this, 
and  endeavor  to  set  up  the  declared  abettors  of  his  own  will, 
for  the  true  representatives  of  the  people,  and  the  lawmakers 
of  the  society,  is  certainly  as  great  a  breach  of  trust,  and  as  perfect 
a  declaration  of  a  design  to  subvert  the  government,  as  is  possible 
to  be  met  with.  To  which,  if  one  shall  add  rewards  and  punish- 
ments visibly  employed  to  the  same  end,  and  all  the  arts  of  per- 
verted law  made  use  of  to  take  off  and  destroy  all  that  stand  in  the 
way  of  such  a  design,  and  will  not  comply  and  consent  to  betray 
the  liberties  of  their  country,  it  will  be  past  doubt  what  is  doing. 
What  power  they  ought  to  have  in  the  society  who  thus  employ  it 
contrary  to  the  trust  that  went  along  with  it  in  its  first  in- 
stitution, is  easy  to  determine;  and  one  cannot  but  see  that 
he  who  has  once  attempted  any  such  thing  as  this  cannot  any 
longer  be  trusted. 

223.  To  this,  perhaps,  it  will  be  said  that  the  people  being 
ignorant  and  always  discontented,  to  lay  the  foundation  of 
government  in  the  unsteady  opinion  and  uncertain  humor  of  the 
people,  is  to  expose  it  to  certain  ruin;  and  no  government  will  be 
able  long  to  subsist  if  the  people  may  set  up  a  new  legislative 
whenever  they  take  offense  at  the  old  one.  To  this  I  answer, 


LOCKE  431 

quite  the  contrary.     People  are  not  so  easily  got  out  of  their  old 
forms  as  some  are  apt  to  suggest.     They  are  hardly  to  be  pre- 
vailed with  to  amend  the  acknowledged  faults  in  the  frame  they  f/ 
have  been  accustomed  to.    And  if  there  be  any  original  defects, 
or  adventitious  ones  introduced  by  time  or  corruption,  it  is  not  an 
easy  thing  to  get  them  changed,  even  when  all  the  world  sees    ^X 
there  is  an  opportunity  for  it.     This  slowness  and  aversion  in  the  r 
people  to  quit  their  old  constitutions  has  in  the  many  revolutions 
which  have  been  seen  in  this  kingdom,  in  this  and  former  ages, 
still  kept  us  to,  or  after  some  interval  of  fruitless  attempts,  still 
brought  us  back  again  to  our  old  legislative  of  king,  lords  and 
commons;  and  whatever  provocations  have  made  the  crown  be 
taken  from  some  of  our  princes'  heads,  they  never  carried  the 
people  so  far  as  to  place  it  in  another  line. 

224.  But  it  will  be  said  this  hypothesis  lays  a  ferment  for 
frequent  rebellion.     To  which  I  answer: 

First:  no  more  than  any  other  hypothesis.  For  when  the 
people  are  made  miserable,  and  find  themselves  exposed  to  the 
ill  usage  of  abritrary  power,  cry  up  their  governors  as  much  as 
you  will  for  sons  of  Jupiter,  let  them  be  sacred  and  divine,  de- 
scended or  authorized  from  Heaven,  give  them  out  for  whom  or 
what  you  please,  the  same  will  happen.  The  people  generally  ill 
treated,  and  contrary  to  right,  will  be  ready  upon  any  occasion 
to  ease  themselves  of  a  burden  that  sits  heavy  upon  them.  They 
will  wish  and  seek  for  the  opportunity,  which  in  the  change, 
weakness,  and  accidents  of  human  affairs,  seldom  delays  long  to 
offer  itself.  He  must  have  lived  but  a  little  while  in  the  world, 
who  has  not  seen  examples  of  this  in  his  time;  and  he  must  have 
read  very  little  who  cannot  produce  examples  of  it  in  all  sorts  of 
governments  in  the  world. 

225.  Secondly:  I  answer,  such  revolutions  happen  not  upon  ~ 
every  little  mismanagement  in  public  affairs.     Great  mistakes  in 
the  ruling  part,  many  wrong  and  inconvenient  laws,  and  all  the 
slips  of  human  frailty  will  be  borne  by  the  people  without  mutiny 
or  murmur.     But  if  a  long  train  of  abuses,  prevarications,  and 
artifices,  all  tending  the  same  way,  make  the  design  visible  to  the 
people,  and  they  cannot  but  feel  what  they  lie  under,  and  see 
whither  they  are  going,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  that  they  should 
then  rouse  themselves,  and  endeavor  to  put  the  rule  into  such 
hands  which  may  secure  to  them  the  ends  for  which  government 
was  at  first  erected,   and  without  which,   ancient  names  and 
specious  forms  are  so  far  from  being  better,  that  they  are  much 
worse  than  the  state  of  nature  or  pure  anarchy;  the  inconveniencies 


432  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

being  all  as  great  and  as  near,  but  the  remedy  farther  off  and 
more  difficult. 

226.  Thirdly:   I  answer,   that  this  power  in  the  people  of 
providing  for  their  safety  anew  by  a  new  legislative  when  their 
legislators  have  acted  contrary  to  their  trust  by  invading  their 
property,  is  the  best  fence  against  rebellion,  and  the  probablest 
means  to  hinder  it.     For  rebellion  being  an  opposition,  not  to 
persons,  but  authority,  which  is  founded  only  in  the  constitutions 
and  laws  of  the  government;  those,  whoever  they  be,  who,  by 
force,  break  through,  and,  by  force,  justify  their  violation  of  them, 
are  truly  and  properly  rebels.     For  when  men,  by  entering  into 
society  and  civil  government,  have  excluded  force,  and  intro- 
duced laws  for  the  preservation  of  property,  peace,  and  unity 
amongst  themselves,  those  who  set  up  force  again  in  opposition 
to  the  laws,  do  rebellare — that  is,  bring  back  again  the  state  of 
war,  and  are  properly  rebels;  which  they  who  are  in  power  (by 
the  pretense  they  have  to  authority,  the  temptation  of  force 
they  have  in  their  hands,  and  the  flattery  of  those  about  them) 
being  likeliest  to  do,  the  properest  way  to  prevent  the  evil  is  to 
show  them  the  danger  and  injustice  of  it  who  are  under  the  greatest 
temptation  to  run  into  it. 

227.  In  both  the  forementioned  cases,  when  either  the  legis- 
lative is  changed,  or  the  legislators  act  contrary  to  the  end  for 
which  they  were  constituted,  those  who  are  guilty  are  guilty  of 
rebellion.    For  if  any  one  by  force  takes  away  the  established 
legislative  of  any  society,  and  the  laws  by  them  made,  pursuant 
to  their  trust,  he  thereby  takes  away  the  umpirage  which  every 
one  had  consented  to  for  a  peaceable  decision  of  all  their  con- 
troversies, and  a  bar  to  the  state  of  war  amongst  them.    They 
who  remove  or  change  the  legislative  take  away  this  decisive 
power,  which  nobody  can  have  but  by  the  appointment  and  con- 
sent of  the  people,  and  so  destroying  the  authority  which  the  people 
did,  and  nobody  else  can  set  up,  and  introducing  a  power  which 
the  people  hath  not  authorized,  actually  introduce  a  state  of  war, 
which  is  that  of  force  without  authority;  and  thus  by  removing  the 
legislative  established  by  the  society,  in  whose  decisions  the  people 
acquiesced  and  united  as  to  that  of  their  own  will,  they  untie  the 
knot,  and  expose  the  people  anew  to  the  state  of  war.     And  if 
those,  who  by  force  take  away  the  legislative,  are  rebels,  the  legis- 
lators themselves,  as  has  been  shown,  can  be  no  less  esteemed  so, 
when  they  who  were  set  up  for  the  protection  and  preservation  of 
the  people,  their  liberties  and  properties  shall  by  force  invade 
and  endeavor  to  take  them  away;  and  so  they  putting  themselves 


LOCKE  433 

into  a  state  of  war  with  those  who  made  them  the  protectors  and 
guardians  of  their  peace,  are  properly,  and  with  the  greatest 
aggravation,  rebellantes,  rebels. 

228.  But  if  they  who  say  it  lays  a  foundation  for  rebellion 
mean  that  it  may  occasion  civil  wars  or  intestine  broils  to  tell 
the  people  they  are  absolved  from  obedience  when  illegal  attempts 
are  made  upon  their  liberties  or  properties,  and  may  oppose  the 
unlawful  violence  of  those  who  were  their  magistrates  when  they 
invade  their  properties,  contrary  to  the  trust  put  in  them,  and  that, 
therefore,  this  doctrine  is  not  to  be  allowed,  being  so  destructive 
to  the  peace  of  the  world;  they  may  as  well  say,  upon  the  same 
ground,  that  honest  men  may  not  oppose  robbers  or  pirates, 
because  this  may  occasion  disorder  or  bloodshed.     If  any  mischief 
come  in  such  cases,  it  is  not  to  be  charged  upon  him  who  defends 
his  own  right,   but  on  him  that    invades    his    neighbor's.     If 
the  innocent  honest  man  must  quietly  quit  all  he  has  for  peace 
sake  to  him  who  will  lay  violent  hands  upon  it,  I  desire  it  may  be 
considered  what  a  kind  of  peace  there  will  be  in  the  world  which 
consists  only  in  violence  and  rapine,  and  which  is  to  be  maintained 
only  for  the  benefit  of  robbers  and  oppressors.     Who  would  not 
think  it  an  admirable  peace  betwixt  the  mighty  and  the  mean, 
when  the  lamb,  without  resistance,  yielded  his  throat  to  be  torn 
by  the  imperious  wolf?     Polyphemus's  den  gives  us  a  perfect 
pattern  of  such  a  peace  and  such  a  government,  wherein  Ulysses 
and  his  companions  had  nothing  to  do  but  quietly  to  suffer 
themselves  to  be  devoured.    And  no  doubt  Ulysses,  who  was  a 
prudent  man,  preached  up  passive  obedience,  and  exhorted  them 
to  a  quiet  submission  by  representing  to  them  of  what  concern- 
ment peace  was  to  mankind,  and  by  showing  the  inconveniencies 
which  might  happen  if  they  should  offer  to  resist  Polyphemus, 
who  had  now  the  power  over  them. 

229.  The  end  of  government  is  the  good  of  mankind;  and 
which  is  best  for  mankind,  that  the  people  should  be  always 
exposed  to  the  boundless  will  of  tyranny,  or  that  the  rulers  should 
be  sometimes  liable  to  be  opposed  when  they  grow  exorbitant 
in  the  use  of  their  power,  and  employ  it  for  the  destruction,  and 
not  the  preservation,  of  the  properties  of  their  people? 

230.  Nor  let  any  one  say  that  mischief  can  arise  from  hence 
as  often  as  it  shall  please  a  busy  head  or  turbulent  spirit  to  desire 
the  alteration  of  the  government.     It  is  true  such  men  may  stir 
whenever  they  please,  but  it  will  be  only  to  their  own  just  ruin 
and  perdition.     For  till  the  mischief  be  grown  general,  and  the 
ill  designs  of  the  rulers  become  visible,  or  their  attempts  sensible 


434  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

to  the  greater  part,  the  people,  who  are  more  disposed  to  suffer 
than  right  themselves  by  resistance,  are  not  apt  to  stir.  The 
examples  of  particular  injustice  or  oppression  of  here  and  there 
an  unfortunate  man  moves  them  not.  But  if  they  universally 
have  a  persuasion  grounded  upon  manifest  evidence  that  designs 
are  carrying  on  against  their  liberties,  and  the  general  course  and 
tendency  of  things  cannot  but  give  them  strong  suspicions  of 
the  evil  intention  of  their  governors,  who  is  to  be  blamed  for  it? 
Who  can  help  it  if  they,  who  might  avoid  it,  bring  themselves 
into  this  suspicion?  Are  the  people  to  be  blamed  if  they  have  the 
sense  of  rational  creatures,  and  can  think  of  things  no  otherwise 
than  as  they  find  and  feel  them?  And  is  it  not  rather  their  fault  who 
put  things  in  such  a  posture  that  they  would  not  have  them  thought 
to  be  as  they  are?  I  grant  that  the  pride,  ambition,  and  turbulency 
of  private  men  have  sometimes  caused  great  disorders  in  common- 
wealths, and  factions  have  been  fatal  to  states  and  kingdoms. 
But  whether  the  mischief  hath  oftener  begun  in  the  people's 
wantonness,  and  a  desire  to  cast  off  the  lawful  authority  of  their 
rulers,  or  in  the  rulers'  insolence  and  endeavors  to  get  and 
exercise  an  arbitrary  power  over  their  people,  whether  oppression 
or  disobedience  gave  the  first  rise  to  the  disorder,  I  leave  it  to 
impartial  history  to  determine.  This  I  am  sure:  whoever,  either 
ruler  or  subject,  by  force  goes  about  to  invade  the  rights  of  either 
prince  or  people,  and  lays  the  foundation  for  overturning  the 
constitution  and  frame  of  any  just  government,  is  guilty  of  the 
greatest  crime  I  think  a  man  is  capable  of,  being  to  answer  for 
all  those  mischiefs  of  blood,  rapine,  and  desolation,  which  the 
breaking  to  pieces  of  governments  bring  on  a  country;  and  he  who 
does  it  is  justly  to  be  esteemed  the  common  enemy  and  pest  of 
mankind,  and  is  to  be  treated  accordingly. 

231.  That  subjects  or  foreigners  attempting  by  force  on  the 
properties  of  any  people  may  be  resisted  with  force  is  agreed  on 
all  hands;  but  that  magistrates  doing  the  same  thing  may  be 
resisted,  hath  of  late  been  denied ;  as  if  those  who  had  the  greatest 
privileges  and  advantages  by  the  law  had  thereby  a  power  to 
break  those  laws  by  which  alone  they  were  set  in  a  better  place 
than  their  brethren;  whereas  their  offense  is  thereby  the  greater, 
both  as  being  ungrateful  for  the  greater  share  they  have  by  the 
law,  and  breaking  also  that  trust  which  is  put  into  their  hands 
by  their  brethren. 

232.  Whosoever  uses  force  without  right — as  every  one  does 
in  society  who  does  it  without  law — puts  himself  into  a  state  of 
war  with  those  against  whom  he  so  uses  it;  and  in  that  state  all 


LOCKE  435 

former  ties  are  cancelled,  all  other  rights  cease,  and  every  one  has 
a  right  to  defend  himself,  and  to  resist  the  aggressor.  .  .  . 

240.  Here  it  is  likely  the  common  question  will  be  made,  Who 
shall  be  judge  whether  the  prince  or  legislative  act  contrary 
to  their  trust?     This,  perhaps,  ill-affected  and  factious  men  may 
spread  amongst  the  people,  when  the  prince  only  makes  use  of 
his  due  prerogative.     To  this  I  reply,  The  people  shall  be  judge; 
for  who  shall  be  judge  whether  his  trustee  or  deputy  acts  well  and 
according  to  the  trust  reposed  in  him,  but  he  who  deputes  him 
and  must,  by  having  deputed  him,  have  still  a  power  to  discard 
him  when  he  fails  in  his  trust?     If  this  be  reasonable  in  particular 
cases  of  private  men,  why  should  it  be  otherwise  in  that  of  the 
greatest  moment,  where  the  welfare  of  millions  is  concerned  and 
also  where  the  evil,  if  not  prevented,  is  greater,  and  the  redress 
very  difficult,  dear,  and  dangerous? 

241.  But,  farther,  this  question,  Who  shall  be  judge?  cannot 
mean  that  there  is  no  judge  at  all.     For  where  there  is  no  judica- 
ture on  earth  to  decide  controversies  amongst  men,  God  in  heaven 
is  judge.     He  alone,  it  is  true,  is  judge  of  the  right.     But  every 
man  is  judge  for  himself,  as  in  all  other  cases  so  in  this,  whether 
another  hath  put  himself  into  a  state  of  war  with  him,  and  whether 
he  should  appeal  to  the  supreme  Judge,  as  Jephtha  did. 

242.  If  a  controversy  arise  betwixt  a  prince  and  some  of  the 
people  in  a  matter  where  the  law  is  silent  or  doubtful,  and  the 
thing  be  of  great  consequence,  I  should  think  the  proper  umpire 
in  such  a  case  should  be  the  body  of  the  people.     For  in  cases  where 
the  prince  hath  a  trust  reposed  in  him,  and  is  dispensed  from  the 
common  ordinary  rules  of  the  law,  there,  if  any  men  find  themselves 
aggrieved,  and  think  the  prince  acts  contrary  to,  or  beyond  that 
trust,  who  so  proper  to  judge  as  the  body  of  the  people  (who  at 
first  lodged  that  trust  in  him)  how  far  they  meant  it  should  ex- 
tend?    But  if  the  prince,  or  whoever  they  be  in  the  administra- 
tion, decline  that  way  of  determination,  the  appeal  then  lies 
nowhere  but  to  Heaven;  force  between  either  persons  who  have 
no  known  superior  on  earth,  or  which  permits  no  appeal  to  a 
judge  on  earth,  being  properly  a  state  of  war,  wherein  the  appeal 
lies  only  to  Heaven;  and  in  tnat  state  the  injured  party  must 
judge  for  himself  when  he  will  think  fit  to  make  use  of  that  appeal 
and  put  himself  upon  it. 

243.  To  conclude.     The  power  that  every  individual  gave 
the  society  when  he  entered  into  it  can  never  revert  to  the  in- 
dividuals again,  as  long  as  the  society  lasts,  but  will  always 


READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

"remarri  in  the  community;  because  without  this  there  can  be  no 
community — no  commonwealth,  which  is  contrary  to  the  original 
agreement;  so  also  when  the  society  hath  placed  the  legislative 
in  any  assembly  of  men,  to  continue  in  them  and  their  successors, 
with  direction  and  authority  for  providing  such  successors,  the 
legislative  can  never  revert  to  the  people  whilst  that  government 
lasts;  because,  having  provided  a  legislative  with  power  to  con- 
tinue for  ever,  they  have  given  up  their  political  power  to  the 
legislative,  and  cannot  resume  it.  But  if  they  have  set  limits  to 
the  duration  of  their  legislative,  and  made  this  supreme  power 
in  any  person  or  assembly  only  temporary;  or  else,  when,  by  the 
miscarriages  of  those  in  authority,  it  is  forfeited;  upon  the  for- 
feiture, or  at  the  determination  of  the  time  set,  it  reverts  to  the 
society,  and  the  people  have  a  right  to  act  as  supreme,  and  continue 
the  legislative  in  themselves  or  erect  a  new  form,  or  under  the 
old  form  place  it  in  new  hands,  as  they  think  good. 

SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

Stephen,  Leslie,  "John  Locke,"  in  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 
Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  pp.  335-345. 
Fraser,  Locke,  pp.  1-78. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  ch.  x,  §§  3-7. 
Pollock,  History  of  the  Science  of  Politics,  pp.  69-79. 
Graham,  English  Political  Philosophy,  pp.  50-87. 

Stephen,  English  Thought  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  Vol.  II,  pp.  130-152. 
Franck,  Reformaleurs  et  publicistes  de  I' Europe,  dix-huitieme  siecle,  pp.  1-61. 
Bastide,  John  Locke,  ses  theories  poliliques  et  son  influence  en  Angleterre. 
Bluntschli,  Geschichte  der  neueren  Staatswissenschaft,  pp.  198-214. 
Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  II,  pp.  198-220. 


MONTESQUIEU 


XVH.    MONTESQUIEU  (1689-1755) 
INTRODUCTION 

Our  next  reading  is  from  a  French  work  of  the  middle  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.     It  is  from  the  Spirit  of  the  Laws  of  Montesquieu. 
This  book  was  not  written  in  such  close  connection  with  sudden 
political  transformations  as  were  the  works  of  the  four  seventeenth- 
century  English  authors  whom  we  have  just  considered.     It  is  con- 
cerned primarily  with  explaining  the  nature  and  working  of  political 
institutions  in  general!      In  some  measure  it  reflects  contempo-| 
rary  conditions;  but  its  aim  is  to  reform  rather  than  either  to  vindi-1 
cate  or  condemn  the  existing  political  and  social  order.     It  deals  j 
more  with   questions  of  governmental  efficiency  and  practical  \ 
justice  than  with  dogmas  as  to  fundamental  rights  of  citizens  or 
the  location  and  prerogatives  of  sovereignty.     In  its  comprehensive 
treatment  of  these  more  concrete  subjects  verification  of  the  various 
doctrines  set  forth  is  sought  in  examples  from  history  and  from 
contemporary  political  experience. 

Montesquieu  was  born  in  Bordeaux  of  a  family  of  the  lesser 
nobility.  He  received  legal  training,  and  in  early  manhood  he 
inherited  the  presidency  of  the  Parliament  of  Bordeaux  from  his 
uncle;  this  office  he  occupied  for  about  ten  years.  During  this 
time  he  was  a  great  reader  of  literature  and  history,  and  wrote 
several  papers  for  the  local  academy  on  philosophical,  scientific 
and  political  topics.  In  1721  he  published  his  first  major  work — 
the  Persian  Letters,  which  is  a  satire  (in  the  form  of  letters  written 
by  two  Persians  traveling  through  France)  upon  the  literary, 
spiritual,  political  and  social  customs  and  traditions  of  the  day 
in  France.  This  work  was  exceedingly  popular  and  immediately 
gave  the  author  a  wide  reputation.  He  sold  his  presidency  and 
moved  to  Paris,  where,  shortly,  he  was  elected  to  the  Academy. 
Soon  thereafter  he  set  out  upon  an  extensive  journey  of  observa- 
tion through  the  countries  of  Europe,  visiting  Austria  and  other 
German  states,  Hungary,  Switzerland,  Italy,  Holland  and,  finally, 
England;  he  remained  about  two  years  in  England.  Returning 

439 


440  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

then  to  France  he  resumed  his  residence  at  the  family  castle  at 
Bordeaux,   and  soon  published  his  next  important  work — the 
v  Causes  of  the  Greatness  and  Decline  of  the  Romans,  which  is  one  of 
the  earliest  significant  works  in  the  modern  philosophy  of  history. 
Montesquieu's  greatest  work — De  V Esprit  des  Lois,  was  pub- 
lished in  1748,  after  a  long  period  of  preparation.     The  word 
"law"  in  this  treatise  is  employed  with  a  very  general  and  flexible 
meaning,  as  appears  from  the  definition  of  law  as  "the  necessary 
relations  springing  from  the  nature  of  things."     But  the  work  is 
I  concerned  chiefly  with  the  interpretation  of  the  "spirit"  of  social 
]  laws.     In  other  words,  attempt  is  made  to  explain  the  inter- 
dependence among  all  the  elements  of  which  a  political  society  is 
composed,— to  show  the  interrelations  among  such  factors  as 
physical  environment,  racial  characteristics,  social,  economic,  and 
religious  customs,  and  civil  institutions;  in  particular,  the  object 
is  to  show  the  relations  between  all  these  factors,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  political  and  civil  liberty,  on  the  other  hand.     The  most 

{influential  part  of  the  work  is  that  in  which  politicaj_liberty  is 
defined,  and  the  separation  of  powers  discussed  as  an  indispensable 
safeguard  for  the  maintenance  of  political  liberty.  Here  the 
government  of  England  is  analyzed  as  an  exemplification  of  the 
dependence  of  political  liberty  upon  governmental  checks  and 

(balances.  As  indicated  before,  Montesquieu's  method  is  empirical 
rather  than  rationalistic;  political  questions  are  treated  not  so 
much  in  relation  to  abstract  political  truth  as  to  nearer,  concrete 
conditions. 

Through  the  selections  below,  from  The  Spirit  of  the  Laws,  it 
is  intended  to  give  a  view  of  Montesquieu's  leading  ideas  on  the 
following  topics:  the  character  of  laws  in  general;  the  forms  of 
government,  and  the  social  and  moral  ^forces  which  support  each 
form;  political  liberty,  and  its  relation  to  the  separation  of 
powers  in  government.  Nothing  is  given  from  the  author's 
comparative  analysis  of  the  relations  between  civil  institutions 
and  racial,  social,  and  physical  factors.  His  extended  study  in 
that  field  cannot  be  well  typified  in  a  brief  selection. 


MONTESQUIEU  441 

READINGS  FROM  THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  LAWS l 

1.     The  Nature  of  Laws* 

i .     Of  the  Relation  of  Laws  to  Different  Beings. 

Laws,  in  their  most  general  signification,  are  the  necessary  t 
relations  arising  from  the  nature  of  things.     In  this  sense  all] 
beings  have  their  laws :  the  Deity  His  laws,  the  material  world  its 
laws,  the  intelligences  superior  to  man  their  laws,  the  beasts  their 
laws,  man  his  laws. 

They  who  assert  that  a  blind  fatality  produced  the  various 
effects  we  behold  in  this  world  talk  very  absurdly;  for  can  anything 
be  more  unreasonable  than  to  pretend  that  a  blind  fatality  could 
be  productive  of  intelligent  beings? 

There  is,  then,  a  prime  reason;  and  laws  are  the  relations  sut> 
sisting  between  it  and  different  beings,  and  the  relations  of  these 
to  one  another. 

God  is  related  to  the  universe,  as  Creator  and  Preserver; 
the  laws  by  which  He  created  all  things  are  those  by  which  He 
preserves  them.  He  acts  according  to  these  rules,  because  He 
knows  them;  He  knows  them,  because  He  made  them;  and  He 
made  them,  because  they  are  in  relation  to  His  wisdom  and  power. 

Since  we  observe  that  the  world,  though  formed  by  the  motion 
of  matter,  and  void  of  understanding,  subsists  through  so  long  a 
succession  of  ages,  its  motions  must  certainly  be  directed  by  in- 
variable laws;  and  could  we  imagine  another  world,  it  must  also 
have  constant  rules,  or  it  would  inevitably  perish. 

Thus  the  creation,  which  seems  an  arbitrary  act,  supposes 
laws  as  invariable  as  those  of  the  fatality  of  the  Atheists.  It  would 
be  absurd  to  say  that  the  Creator  might  govern  the  world  without 
those  rules,  since  without  them  it  could  not  subsist.  I 

These  rules  are  a  fixed  and  invariable  relation.     In  bodies  | 
moved,  the  motion  is  received,  increased,  diminished,  or  lost, 
according  to  the  relations  of  the  quantity  of  matter  and  velocity; 
each  diversity  is  uniformity,  each  change  is  constancy.  I 

Particular  intelligent  beings  may  have  laws  of  their  own  making, 
but  they  have  some  likewise  which  they  never  made.     Before 
there  were  intelligent  beings,  they  were  possible;  they  had  there- 
fore possible  relations,  and  consequently  possible  laws.     Beforej 
laws  were  made,  there  were  relations  of   possible  justice.     Tof 

xThe  selections  are  from  The  Spirit  of  the  Laws,  translated  by  Thomas 
Nugent.  New  edition,  revised  by  J.  V.  Prichard.  Two  volumes.  London, 
1878.  Bohn's  Standard  Library.  George  Bell  and  Sons. 

a  Book  I. 


442  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

say  that  there  is  nothing  just  or  unjust  but  what  is  commanded  or 
forbidden  by  positive  laws,  is  the  same  as  saying  that  before  the 
describing  of  a  circle  all  the  radii  were  not  equal. 

We  must  therefore  acknowledge  relations  of  justice  ante- 
to  the  positive  law  by  which  they  are  established:  as,  for 
instance,  if  human  societies  existed,  it  would  be  right  to  conform 
to  their  laws;  if  there  were  intelligent  beings  that  had  received  a 
benefit  of  another  being,  they  ought  to  show  their  gratitude; 
if  one  intelligent  being  had  created  another  intelligent  being, 
the  latter  ought  to  continue  in  its  original  state  of  dependence; 
if  one  intelligent  being  injures  another,  it  deserves  a  retaliation; 
and  so  on. 

I  But  the  intelligent  world  is  far  from  being  so  well  governed  as 
the  physical.  For  though  the  former  has  also  its  laws,  which  of 
their  own  nature  are  invariable,  it  does  not  conform  to  them  so 
exactly  as  the  physical  world.  This  is  because,  on  the  one  hand, 
particular  intelligent  beings  are  of  a  finite  nature,  and  consequently 
liable  to  error;  and  on  the  other,  their  nature  requires  them  to  be 
free  agents.  Hence  they  do  not  steadily  conform  to  their  primi- 
tive laws;  and  even  those  of  their  own  instituting  they  frequently 
infringe. 

Whether  brutes  be  governed  by  the  general  laws  of  motion, 
or  by  a  particular  movement,  we  cannot  determine.  Be  that  as 
it  may,  they  have  not  a  more  intimate  relation  to  God  than  the 
rest  of  the  material  world;  and  sensation  is  of  no  other  use  to  them 
than  in  the  relation  they  have  either  to  other  particular  beings 
or  to  themselves. 

By  the  allurement  of  pleasure  they  preserve  the  individual, 
and  by  the  same  allurement  they  preserve  their  species.  They 
have  natural  laws,  because  they  are  united  by  sensation;  positive 
laws  they  have  none,  because  they  are  not  connected  by  knowledge. 
And  yet  they  do  not  invariably  conform  to  their  natural  laws; 
these  are  better  observed  by  vegetables,  that  have  neither  under- 
standing nor  sense. 

Brutes  are  deprived  of  the  high  advantages  which  we  have; 
but  they  have  some  which  we  have  not.  They  have  not  our 
hopes,  but  they  are  without  our  fears;  they  are  subject  like  us 
to  death,  but  without  knowing  it;  even  most  of  them  are  more 
attentive  than  we  to  self-preservation,  and  do  not  make  so  bad  a 
use  of  their  passions. 

Man,  as  a  physical  being,  is  like  other  bodies  governed  by 
invariable  laws.  As  an  intelligent  being,  he  incessantly  trans- 
gresses the  laws  established  by  God,  and  changes  those  of  his 


MONTESQUIEU  443 

own  instituting.  He  is  left  to  his  private  direction,  though  a 
limited  being,  and  subject,  like  all  finite  intelligences,  to  ignorance 
and  error:  even  his  imperfect  knowledge  he  loses;  and  as  a  sensible 
creature,  he  is  hurried  away  by  a  thousand  impetuous  passions. 
Such  a  being  might  every  instant  forget  his  Creator;  God  has 
therefore  reminded  him  of  his  duty  by  the  laws  of  religion.  Such 
a  being  is  liable  every  moment  to  forget  himself;  philosophy  has 
provided  against  this  by  the  laws  of  morality.  Formed  to  live 
in  society,  he  might  forget  his  fellow-creatures;  legislators  have 
therefore  by  political  and  civil  laws  confined  him  to  his  duty. 

2.     Of  the  Laws  of  Nature. 

Antecedent  to  the  above-mentioned  laws  are  those  of  nature, 
so  called,  because  they  derive  their  force  entirely  from  our  frame 
and  existence.  In  order  to  have  a  perfect  knowledge  of  these 
laws,  we  must  consider  man  before  the  establishment  of  society: 
the  laws  received  in  such  a  state  would  be  those  of  nature. 

The  law  which,  impressing  on  our  minds  the  idea  of  a  Creator, 
inclines  us  towards  Him,  is  the  first  in  importance,  though  not  in 
order,  of  natural  laws.  Man  in  a  state  of  nature  would  have  the  ] 
faculty  of  knowing,  before  he  had  acquired  any  knowledge.  I 
Plain  it  is  that  his  first  ideas  would  not  be  of  a  speculative  nature; 
he  would  think  of  the  preservation  of  his  being,  before  he  would 
investigate  its  origin.  Such  a  man  would  feel  nothing  in  himself  at 
first  but  impotency  and  weakness;  his  fears  and  apprehensions 
would  be  excessive;  as  appears  from  instances  (were  there  any 
necessity  of  proving  it)  of  savages  found  in  forests,  trembling  at 
the  motion  of  a  leaf,  and  flying  from  every  shadow. 

In  this  state  every  man,  instead  of  being  sensible  of  his  equality, 
would  fancy  himself  inferior.  There  would  therefore  be  no  danger 
of  their  attacking  one  another;  peace  would  be  the  first  law  oa 
nature. 

The  natural  impulse  or  desire  which  Hobbes  attributes  to  man-j 
kind  of  subduing  one  another  is  far  from  being  well  founded] 
The  idea  of  empire  and  dominion  is  so  complex,  and  depends  on 
so  many  other  notions,  that  it  could  never  be  the  first  which 
occurred  to  the  human  understanding. 

Hobbes  inquires,  For  what  reason  go  men  armed,  and  have 
locks  and  keys  to  fasten  their  doors,  if  they  be  not  naturally  in  a 
state  of  war?  But  is  it  not  obvious  that  he  attributes  to  man- 
kind before  the  establishment  of  society  what  can  happen  but  in 
consequence  of  this  establishment,  which  furnishes  them  with 
motives  for  hostile  attacks  and  self-defense? 


444  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Next  to  a  sense  of  his  weakness  man  would  soon  find  that  of 
his  wants.  Hence  another  law  of  nature  would  prompt  him  to 
seek  for  nourishment. 

Fear,  I  have  observed,  would  induce  men  to  shun  one  another; 
but  the  marks  of  this  fear  being  reciprocal,  would  soon  engage 
them  to  associate.  Besides,  this  association  would  quickly 
follow  from  the  very  pleasure  one  animal  feels  at  the  approach 
of  another  of  the  same  species.  Again,  the  attraction  arising 
from  the  difference  of  sexes  would  enhance  this  pleasure,  and  the 
natural  inclination  they  have  for  each  other  would  form  a  third  law. 

Besides  the  sense  or  instinct  which  man  possesses  in  common 

with  brutes,  he  has  the  advantage  of  acquired  knowledge;  and 

thence  arises  a  second  tie,  which  brutes  have  not.     Mankind  have 

therefore  a  new  motive  of  uniting;  and  a  fourth  law  of  nature 

'•  results  from  the  desire  of  living  in  society. 

3.     Of  Positive  Laws. 

As  soon  as  man  enters  into  a  state  of  society  he  loses  the  sense 
pf  his  weakness;  equality  ceases,  and  then  commences  the  state 
"  'of  war. 

Each  particular  society  begins  to  feel  its  strength,  whence  arises 
a  state  of  war  between  different  nations.  The  individuals  like- 
wise of  each  society  become  sensible  of  their  force;  hence  the 
principal  advantages  of  this  society  they  endeavor  to  convert 
to  their  own  emolument,  which  constitutes  a  state  of  war  between 
individuals. 

These  two  different  kinds  of  states  give  rise  to  human  laws. 
Considered  as  inhabitants  of  so  great  a  planet,  which  necessarily 
contains  a  variety  of  nations,  they  have  laws  relating  to  their 
mutual  intercourse,  which  is  what  we  call  the  law  of  nations.  As 
members  of  a  society  that  must  be  properly  supported,  they  have 
laws  relating  to  the  governors  and  the  governed,  and  this  we 
distinguish  by  the  name  of  political  law.  They  have  also  another 
sort  of  laws,  as  they  stand  in  relation  to  each  other;  by  which  is 
understood  the  civil  law. 

The  law  of  nations  is  naturally  founded  on  this  principle,  that 
different  nations  ought  in  time  of  peace  to  do  one  another  all  the 
good  they  can,  and  in  time  of  war  as  little  injury  as  possible, 
without  prejudicing  their  real  interests. 

The  object  of  war  is  victory;  that  of  victory  is  conquest;  and 
that  of  conquest  preservation.  From  this  and  the  preceding 
principle  all  those  rules  are  derived  which  constitute  the  law  of 
nations. 


MONTESQUIEU  445 

All  countries  have  a  law  of  nations,  not  excepting  the  Iroquois 
themselves,  though  they  devour  their  prisoners:  for  they  send 
and  receive  ambassadors,  and  understand  the  rights  of  war  and 
peace.  The  mischief  is  that  their  law  of  nations  is  not  founded 
on  true  principles. 

Besides  the  law  of  nations  relating  to  all  societies,  there  is  a 
polity  or  civil  constitution  for  each  particularly  considered.  No 
society  can  subsist  without  a  form  of  government.  The  united 
strength  of  individuals,  as  Gravina  well  observes,  constitutes  what 
we  call  the  body  politic. 

The  general  strength  may  be  in  the  hands  of  a  single  person, 
or  of  many.  Some  think  that  nature  having  established  paternal 
authority,  the  most  natural  government  was  that  of  a  single 
person.  But  the  example  of  paternal  authority  proves  nothing. 
For  if  the  power  of  a  father  relates  to  a  single  government,  that  of 
brothers  after  the  death  of  a  father,  and  that  of  cousin-germans 
after  the  decease  of  brothers,  refer  to  a  government  of  many. 
The  political  power  necessarily  comprehends  the  union  of  several 
families. 

Better  is  it  to  say,  that  the  government  most  conformable 
to  nature  is  that  which  best  agrees  with  the  humor  and  disposi- 
tion of  the  people  in  whose  favor  it  is  established. 

The  strength  of  individuals  cannot  be  united  without  a  con- 
junction of  all  their  wills.  The  conjunction  of  those  wills,  as 
Gravina  again  very  justly  observes,  is  what  we  call  the  civil 
state. 

Law  in  general  is  human  reason,  inasmuch  as  it  governs  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  earth:  the  political  and  civil  laws  of  each 
nation  ought  to  be  only  the  particular  cases  in  which  human  reason 
is  applied. 

They  should  be  adapted  in  such  a  manner  to  the  people  for 
whom  they  are  framed  that  it  should  be  a  great  chance  if  those 
of  one  nation  suit  another. 

They  should  be  in  relation  to  the  nature  and  principle  of  each 
government;  whether  they  form  it,  as  may  be  said  of  political  laws; 
or  whether  they  support  it,  as  in  the  case  of  civil  institutions. 

They  should  be  in  relation  to  the  climate  of  each  country,  to  the 
quality  of  its  soil,  to  its  situation  and  extent,  to  the  principal 
occupation  of  the  natives,  whether  husbandmen,  huntsmen,  or 
shepherds:  they  should  have  relation  to  the  degree  of  liberty 
which  the  constitution  will  bear;  to  the  religion  of  the  inhabitants, 
to  their  inclinations,  riches,  numbers,  commerce,  manners,  and 
customs.  In  fine,  they  have  relations  to  each  other,  as  also  to 


iV 


446  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

their  origin,  to  the  intent  of  the  legislator,  and  to  the  order  of 
things  on  which  they  are  established;  in  all  of  which  different 
lights  they  ought  to  be  considered. 

This  is  what  I  have  undertaken  to  perform  in  the  following 
work.  These  relations  I  shall  examine,  since  all  these  together 
constitute  what  I  call  the  spirit  of  laws. 

I  have  not  separated  the  politicaTfrom  the  civil  institutions, 
as  I  do  not  pretend  to  treat  of  laws,  but  of  their  spirit;  and  as 
I  this  spirit  consists  in  the  various  relations  which  the  laws  may 
bear  to  different  objects,  it  is  not  so  much  my  business  to  follow 
the  natural  order  of  laws  as  that  of  these  relations  and  objects. 

I  shall  first  examine  the  relations  which  laws  bear  to  the  nature 
and  principle  of  each  government;  and  as  this  principle  has  a 
strong  influence  on  laws,  I  shall  make  it  my  study  to  understand 
it  thoroughly:  and  if  I  can  but  once  establish  it,  the  laws  will 
soon  appear  to  flow  thence  as  from  their  source.  I  shall  proceed 
afterwards  to  other  and  more  particular  relations. 

2.     The  Nature  of  the  Forms  of  Government x 

1.  Of  the  Nature  of  the  Three  Different  Governments. 

There  are  three  species  of  government:  republican,  monarchical, 
and  despotic.  In  order  to  discover  their  nature,  it  is  sufficient 
to  recollect  the  common  notion,  which  supposes  three  definitions, 
or  rather  three  facts :  that  a  republican  government  is  thaj  in  which 
the  body,  or  only  a  part  of  the  people,  is  possessed  of  the  supreme 
power;  monarchy,  that  in  which  a  single  person  governs  by  fixed 
and  established  laws;  a  despotic  government,  that  in  which  a  single 
person  directs  everything  by  his  own  will  and  caprice. 

This  is  what  I  call  the  nature  of  each  government;  we  must 
now  inquire  into  those  laws  which  directly  conform  to  this  nature, 
and  consequently  are  the  fundamental  institutions. 

2.  Of  Republican   Government,    and   the   Laws   in  relation   to 
Democracy. 

When  the  body  of  the  people  is  possessed  of  the  supreme  power, 
it  is  called  a  democracy.  When  the  supreme  power  is  lodged  in 
the  hands  of  a  part  of  the  people,  it  is  then  an  aristocracy. 

In  a  democracy  the  people  are  in  some  respects  the  sovereign, 
and  in  others  the  subject. 

There  can  be  no  exercise  of  sovereignty  but  by  their  suffrages, 
which  are  their  own  will;  now  the  sovereign's  will  is  the  sovereign 
himself.  The  laws  therefore  which  establish  the  right  of  suffrage 

1  Book  II. 


MONTESQUIEU  447 

are  fundamental  to  this  government.  And  indeed  it  is  as  impor- 
tant to  regulate  in  a  republic,  in  what  manner,  by  whom,  to  whom, 
and  concerning  what,  suffrages  are  to  be  given,  as  it  is  in  a  mon- 
archy to  know  who  is  the  prince,  and  after  what  manner  he  ought 
to  govern. 

Libanius  says  that  at  Athens  a  stranger  who  intermeddled  in 
the  assemblies  of  the  people  was  punished  with  death.  This  is 
because  such  a  man  usurped  the  rights  of  sovereignty. 

It  is  an  essential  point  to  fix  the  number  of  citizens  who  are  j 
to  form  the  public  assemblies;  otherwise  it  would  be  uncertain 
whether  the  whole,  or  only  a  part  of  the  people,  had  given  their 
votes.  At  Sparta  the  number  was  fixed  at  ten  thousand.  But 
Rome,  designed  by  Providence  to  rise  from  the  weakest  beginnings 
to  the  highest  pitch  of  grandeur;  Rome,  doomed  to  experience 
all  the  vicissitudes  of  fortune;  Rome,  who  had  sometimes  all  her 
inhabitants  without  her  walls,  and  sometimes  all  Italy  and  a 
considerable  part  of  the  world  within  them;  Rome,  I  say,  never 
fixed  the  number;  and  this  was  one  of  the  principal  causes  of 
her  ruin. 

//The  people,  in  whom  the  supreme  power  resides,  ought  to  have 
the  management  of  everything  within  their  reach:  that  which 
exceeds  their  abilities  must  be  conducted  by  their  ministers.  \^ 

But  they  cannot  properly  be  said  to  have  their  ministers, 
without  the  power  of  nominating  them:  it  is,  therefore,  a  funda- 
mental maxim  in  this  government,  that  the  people  should  choose 
their  ministers — that  is,  their  magistrates. 

They  have  occasion,  as  well  as  monarchs,  and  even  more  so, 
to  be  directed  by  a  council  or  senate.  But  to  have  a  proper  con- 
fidence in  these,  they  should  have  the  choosing  of  the  members; 
whether  the  election  be  made  by  themselves,  as  at  Athens,  or  by 
some  magistrate  deputed  for  that  purpose,  as  on  certain  occasions 
was  customary  at  Rome. 

The  people  are  extremely  well  qualified  for  choosing  those  I  ^ 
whom  they  are  to  intrust  with  part  of  their  authority.  They 
have  only  to  be  determined  by  things  to  which  they  cannot  be 
strangers,  and  by  facts  that  are  obvious  to  sense.  They  can  tell 
when  a  person  has  fought  many  battles,  and  been  crowned  with 
success;  they  are,  therefore,  capable  of  electing  a  general.  They 
can  tell  when  a  judge  is  assiduous  in  his  office,  gives  general  satis- 
faction, and  has  never  been  charged  with  bribery:  this  is  sufficient 
for  choosing  a  praetor.  They  are  struck  with  the  magnificence 
or  riches  of  a  fellow-citizen;  no  more  is  requisite  for  electing  an 
sedile.  These  are  facts  of  which  they  can  have  better  information 


448  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

in  a  public  forum  than  a  monarch  in  his  palace.     But  are  they 
capable  of  conducting  an  intricate  affair,  of  seizing  and  improving 

Uthe  opportunity  and  critical  moment  of  action?     No;  this  sur- 
passes their  abilities. 

Should  we  doubt  the  people's  natural  capacity,  in  respect  to 
the  discernment  of  merit,  we  need  only  cast  an  eye  on  the  series  of 
surprising  elections  made  by  the  Athenians  and  Romans;  which 
no  one  surely  will  attribute  to  hazard. 

We  know  that  though  the  people  of  Rome  assumed  the  right 
of  raising  plebeians  to  public  offices,  yet  they  never  would  exert 
this  power;  and  though  at  Athens  the  magistrates  were  allowed, 
by  the  law  of  Aristides,  to  be  elected  from  all  the  different  classes 
of  inhabitants,  there  never  was  a  case,  says  Xenophon,  when  the 
common  people  petitioned  for  employments  which  could  endanger 
either  their  security  or  their  glory. 

As  most  citizens  have  sufficient  ability  to  choose,  though  un- 
qualified to  be  chosen,  so  the  people,  though  capable  of  calling 
V  others  to  an  account  for  their  administration,  are  incapable  of 
i  conducting  the  administration  themselves. 

The  public  business  must  be  carried  on  with  a  certain  motion, 
neither  too  quick  nor  too  slow.  But  the  motion  of  the  people  is 
always  either  too  remiss  or  too  violent.  Sometimes  with  a 
hundred  thousand  arms  they  overturn  all  before  them;  and  some- 
times with  a  hundred  thousand  feet  they  creep  like  insects. 

In  a  popular  state  the  inhabitants  are  divided  into  certain 
classes.     It  is  in  the  manner  of  making  this  division  that  great 
[  legislators  have  signalized  themselves;  and  it  is  on  this  the  dura- 
tion and  prosperity  of  democracy  have  ever  depended. 

Servius  Tullius  followed  the  spirit  of  aristocracy  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  his  classes.  We  find  in  Livy  and  in  Dionysius  Halicar- 
nassus,  in  what  manner  he  lodged  the  right  of  suffrage  in  the  hands 
of  the  principal  citizens.  He  had  divided  the  people  of  Rome 
into  193  centuries,  which  formed  six  classes;  and  ranking  the  rich, 
who  were  in  smaller  numbers,  in  the  first  centuries,  and  those 
in  middling  circumstances,  who  were  more  numerous,  in  the  next, 
he  flung  the  indigent  multitude  into  the  last;  and  as  each  century 
had  but  one  vote,  it  was  property  rather  than  numbers  that 
decided  the  election. 

Solon  divided  the  people  of  Athens  into  four  classes.  In  this 
he  was  directed  by  the  spirit  of  democracy,  his  intention  not  being 
to  fix  those  who  were  to  choose,  but  such  as  were  eligible:  there- 
fore, leaving  to  every  citizen  the  right  of  election,  he  made  the 
judges  eligible  from  each  of  those  four  classes;  but  the  magistrates 


MONTESQUIEU  449 

he  ordered  to  be  chosen  only  out  of  the  first  three,  consisting  of 
persons  of  easy  fortunes. 

As  the  division  of  those  who  have  a  right  of  suffrage  is  a  funda- 
mental  law  in  republics,  so  the  manner  of  giving  this  suffrage  is 
another  fundamental. 

The  suffrage  by  lot  is  natural  to  democracy ;  as  that  by  choice  is 
to  aristocracy. 

The  suffrage  by  lot  is  a  method  of  electing  that  offends  no  one, 
but  animates  each  citizen  with  the  pleasing  hope  of  serving  his 
country. 

Yet  as  this  method  is  in  itself  defective,  it  has  been  the  endeavor 
of  the  most  eminent  legislators  to  regulate  and  amend  it. 

Solon  made  a  law  at  Athens,  that  military  employments  should 
be  conferred  by  choice;  but  that  senators  and  judges  should  be 
elected  by  lot. 

The  same  legislator  ordained  that  civil  magistracies  attended 
with  great  expense  should  be  given  by  choice,  and  the  others  by 
lot. 

In  order,  however,  to  amend  the  suffrage  by  lot,  he  made  a 
rule  that  none  but  those  who  presented  themselves  should  be 
elected;  that  the  person  elected  should  be  examined  by  judges, 
and  that  every  one  should  have  a  right  to  accuse  him  if  he  were 
unworthy  of  the  office;  this  participated  at  the  same  time  of  the 
suffrage  by  lot,  and  of  that  by  choice.  When  the  time  of  their 
magistracy  had  expired,  they  were  obliged  to  submit  to  another 
judgment  in  regard  to  their  conduct.  Persons  utterly  unqualified 
must  have  been  extremely  backward  in  giving  in  their  names  to 
be  drawn  by  lot. 

The  law  which  determines  the  manner  of  giving  suffrage  is 
likewise  fundamental  in  a  democracy.  It  is  a  question  of  some 
importance  whether  the  suffrages  ought  to  be  public  or  secret. 
Cicero  observes  that  the  laws  which  rendered  them  secret  towards 
the  close  of  the  republic  were  the  cause  of  its  decline.  But  as 
this  is  differently  practised  in  different  republics,  I  shall  offer  here 
my  thoughts  concerning  this  subject. 

The  people's  suffrages  ought  doubtless  to  be  public;  and  this 
should  be  considered  as  a  fundamental  law  of  democracy.  The 
lower  class  ought  to  be  directed  by  those  of  higher  rank,  and 
restrained  within  bounds  by  the  gravity  of  eminent  personages. 
Hence,  by  rendering  the  suffrages  secret  in  the  Roman  republic,\ 
all  was  lost;  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  direct  a  populace  that 
sought  its  own  destruction.  But  when  the  body  of  the  nobles 
are  to  vote  in  an  aristocracy,  or  in  a  democracy  the  senate,  as 


450  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  business  is  then  only  to  prevent  intrigues,  the  suffrages  cannot 
be  too  secret. 

Intriguing  in  a  senate  is  dangerous;  it  is  dangerous  also  in  a 
M  body  of  nobles;  but  not  so  among  the  people,  whose  nature  is  to 
act  through  passion.  In  countries  where  they  have  no  share  in 
i  the  government,  we  often  see  them  as  much  inflamed  on  account  of 
an  actor  as  ever  they  could  be  for  the  welfare  of  the  state.  The 
misfortune  of  a  republic  is  when  intrigues  are  at  an  end;  which 
happens  when  the  people  are  gained  by  bribery  and  corruption: 
in  this  case  they  grow  indifferent  to  public  affairs,  and  avarice 
becomes  their  predominant  passion.  Unconcerned  about  the 
government  and  everything  belonging  to  it,  they  quietly  wait  for 
-their  hire. 

II  It  is  likewise  a  fundamental  law  in  democracies,  that  the 
,  *•  people  should  have  the  sole  power  to  enact  laws.    And  yet  there 
iare  a  thousand  occasions  on  which  it  is  necessary  the  senate 
should  have  the  power  of  decreeing;  nay,  it  is  frequently  proper 
^     to  make  some  trial  of  a  law  before  it  is  established.     The  constitu- 
tions of  Rome  and  Athens  were  excellent.     The  decrees  of  the 

•m. 

senate  had  the  force  of  laws  for  the  space  of  a  year,  but  did  not 
become  perpetual  till  they  were  ratified  by  the  consent  of  the 
people.  1 1 

> 

3.     Of  the  Laws  in  Relation  to  the  Nature  of  Aristocracy. 

In  an  aristocracy  the  supreme  power  is  lodged  in  the  hands  of  a 
certain  number  of  persons.  These  are  invested  both  with  the 
legislative  and  executive  authority;  and  the  rest  of  the  people  are, 
in  respect  to  them,  the  same  as  the  subjects  of  a  monarchy  in 
regard  to  the  sovereign. 

I      They  do  not  vote  here  by  lot,  for  this  would  be  productive  of 
inconveniences  only.     And  indeed,  in  a  government  where  the 
most  mortifying  distinctions  are  already  established,  though  they 
'}  were  to  be  chosen  by  lot,  still  they  would  not  cease  to  be  odious; 
it  is  the  nobleman  they  envy,  and  not  the  magistrate. 

When  the  nobility  are  numerous,  there  must  be  a  senate  to 
regulate  the  affairs  which  the  body  of  the  nobles  are  incapable 
of  deciding,  and  to  prepare  others  for  their  decision.  In  this 
case  it  may  be  said  that  the  aristocracy  is  in  some  measure  in 
the  senate,  the  democracy  in  the  body  of  the  nobles,  and  the  people 
are  a  cipher. 

It  would  be  a  very  happy  thing  in  an  aristocracy  if  the  people, 
in  some  measure,  could  be  raised  from  their  state  of  annihilation. 
Thus  at  Genoa,  the  bank  of  St.  George  being  administered  by  the 


c 

MONTESQUIEU  451 

people  gives  them  a  certain  influence  in  the  government,  whence 
their  whole  prosperity  is  derived. 

The  senators  ought  by  no  means  to  have  the  right  of  naming 
their  own  members;  for  this  would  be  the  only  way  to  perpetuate 
abuses.  At  Rome,  which  in  its  early  years  was  a  kind  of  aris- 
tocracy, the  senate  did  not  fill  up  the  vacant  places  in  their  own 
body;  the  new  members  were  nominated  by  the  censors. 

In  a  republic,  the  sudden  rise  of  a  private  citizen  to  exorbitant 
power  produces  monarchy,  or  something  more  than  monarchy. 
In  the  latter  the  laws  have  provided  for,  or  in  some  measure 
adapted  themselves  to,  the  constitution;  and  the  principle  of 
government  checks  the  monarch :  but  in  a  republic,  where  a  private 
citizen  has  obtained  an  exorbitant  power,  the  abuse  of  this  power 
is  much  greater,  because  the  laws  foresaw  it  not,  and  consequently 
made  no  provision  against  it. 

There  is  an  exception  to  this  rule,  when  the  constitution  is 
such  as  to  have  immediate  need  of  a  magistrate  invested  with 
extraordinary  power.  Such  was  Rome  with  her  dictators,  such 
is  Venice  with  her  state  inquisitors;  these  are  formidable  magis- 
trates, who  restore,  as  it  were  by  violence,  the  state  to  its  liberty. 
But  how  comes  it  that  these  magistracies  are  so  very  different  in 
these  two  republics?  It  is  because  Rome  supported  the  remainsX 
of  her  aristocracy  against  the  people;  whereas  Venice  employs  < 
her  state  inquisitors  to  maintain  her  aristocracy  against  the  nobles.  • 
The  consequence  was,  that  at  Rome  the  dictatorship  could  be 
only  of  short  duration,  as  the  people  acted  through  passion  and 
not  with  design.  It  was  necessary  that  a  magistracy  of  this  kind 
should  be  exercised  with  luster  and  pomp,  the  business  being  to 
intimidate,  and  not  to  punish  the  multitude.  It  was  also  proper 
that  the  dictator  should  be  created  only  for  some  particular  affair, 
and  for  this  only  should  have  unlimited  authority,  as  he  was 
always  created  upon  some  sudden  emergency.  On  the  con- 
trary, at  Venice  they  have  occasion  for  a  permanent  magistracy; 
for  here  it  is  that  schemes  may  be  set  on  foot,  continued,  sus- 
pended, and  resumed;  that  the  ambition  of  a  single  person  be- 
comes that  of  a  family,  and  the  ambition  of  one  family  that  of 
many.  They  have  occasion  for  a  secret  magistracy,  the  crimes 
they  punish  being  hatched  in  secrecy  and  silence.  This  magis- 
tracy must  have  a  general  inquisition,  for  their  business  is  not 
to  remedy  known  disorders,  but  to  prevent  the  unknown.  In  a  \ 
word,  the  latter  is  designed  to  punish  suspected  crimes;  whereas 
the  former  used  rather  menaces  than  punishment  even  for  crimes  I 
that  were  openly  avowed. 


452  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

In  all  magistracies,  the  greatness  of  the  power  must  be  com- 
pensated by  the  brevity  of  the  duration.  This  most  legislators 
have  fixed  to  a  year;  a  longer  space  would  be  dangerous,  and  a 
shorter  would  be  contrary  to  the  nature  of  government.  For 
who  is  it  that  in  the  management  even  of  his  domestic  affairs 
would  be  thus  confined?  At  Ragusa  the  chief  magistrate  of  the 
republic  is  changed  every  month,  the  other  officers  every  week, 
and  the  governor  of  the  castle  every  day.  But  this  can  take  place 
only  in  a  small  republic  environed  by  formidable  powers,  who 
might  easily  corrupt  such  petty  and  insignificant  magistrates. 

The  best  aristocracy  is  that  in  which  those  who  have  no  share 
in  the  legislature  are  so  few  and  inconsiderable  that  the  governing 
party  have  no  interest  in  oppressing  them.  Thus  when  Antipater 
made  a  law  at  Athens,  that  whosoever  was  not  worth  two  thousand 
drachms  should  have  no  power  to  vote,  he  formed  by  this  method 
the  best  aristocracy  possible,  because  this  was  so  small  a  sum  as 
to  exclude  very  few,  and  not  one  of  any  rank  or  consideration 
in  the  city. 

Aristocratic  families  ought  therefore,  as  much  as  possible,  to 
level  themselves  in  appearance  with  the  people.  The  more  an 
aristocracy  borders  on  democracy,  the  nearer  it  approaches  per- 
fection: and,  in  proportion  as  it  draws  towards  monarchy,  the 
more  is  it  imperfect. 

But  the  most  imperfect  of  all  is  that  in  which  the  part  of  the 
people  that  obeys  is  in  a  state  of  civil  servitude  to  those  who 
command,  as  the  aristocracy  of  Poland,  where  the  peasants  are 
slaves  to  the  nobility. 

4.  Of  the  Relation  of  Laws  to  the  Nature  of  Monarchical  Govern- 
ment. 

The  intermediate,  subordinate,  and  dependent  powers  con- 
stitute the  nature  of  monarchical  government;  I  mean  of  that. in 
which  a  single  person  governs  by  fundamental  laws.  I  said, 
the  intermediate,  subordinate,  and  dependent  powers.  And  indeed, 
in  monarchies  the  prince  is  the  source  of  all  power,  political  and 
civil.  These  fundamental  laws  necessarily  suppose  the  inter- 
mediate channels  through  which  the  power  flows:  for  if  there  be 
only  the  momentary  and  capricious  will  of  a  single  person  to 
govern  the  state,  nothing  can  be  fixed,  and  of  course  there  is  no 
fundamental  law. 

The  most  natural,  intermediate,  and  subordinate  power  is 
that  of  the  nobility.  This  in  some  measure  seems  to  be  essential 
to  a  monarchy,  whose  fundamental  maxim  is:  no  monarch,  no 


MONTESQUIEU  453 

nobility;  no  nobility,  no  monarch;  but  there  may  be  a  despotic 
prince. 

There  are  men  who  have   endeavored   in   some   countries  in 
Europe  to  suppress  the  jurisdiction  of  the  nobility,  not  perceiving 
that  they  were  driving  at  the  very  thing  that  was  done  by  the 
parliament  of  England.     Abolish  the  privileges  of  the  lords,  the  v 
clergy  and  cities  in  a  monarchy,  and  you  will  soon  have  a  popular  | 
state,  or  else  a  despotic  government. 

The  courts  of  a  considerable  kingdom  in  Europe  have,  for  many 
ages,  been  striking  at  the  patrimonial  jurisdiction  of  the  lords 
and  clergy.  We  do  not  pretend  to  censure  these  sage  magistrates; 
but  we  leave  it  to  the  public  to  judge  how  far  this  may  alter  the 
constitution. 

Far  am  I  from  being  prejudiced  in  favor  of  the  privileges 
of  the  clergy;  however,  I  should  be  glad  if  their  jurisdiction  werei 
once  fixed.  The  question  is  not,  whether  their  jurisdiction  was| 
justly  established;  but  whether  it  be  really  established;  whether  it 
constitutes  a  part  of  the  laws  of  the  country,  and  is  in  every  respect 
in  relation  to  those  laws:  whether  between  two  powers  acknowl- 
edged independent,  the  conditions  ought  not  to  be  reciprocal;  and 
whether  it  be  not  equally  the  duty  of  a  good  subject  to  defend 
the  prerogative  of  the  prince,  and  to  maintain  the  limits  which 
from  time  immemorial  have  been  prescribed  to  his  authority. 

Though  the  ecclesiastic  power  be  so  dangerous  in  a  republic,! 
yet  it  is  extremely  proper  in  a  monarchy,  especially  of  the  abso-j 
lute  kind.     What  would  become  of  Spain  and  Portugal,  since  the  • 
subversion  of  their  laws,  were  it  not  for  this  only  barrier  against 
the  incursions  of  arbitrary  power?    A  barrier  ever  useful  when 
there  is  no  other:  for  since  a  despotic  government  is  productive 
of  the  most  dreadful  calamities  to  human  nature,  the  very  evil 
that  restrains  it  is  beneficial  to  the  subject. 

In  the  same  manner  as  the  ocean,  threatening  to  overflow  the 
whole  earth,  is  stopped  by  weeds  and  pebbles  that  lie  scattered 
along  the  shore,  so  monarchs,  whose  power  seems  unbounded,  are 
restrained  by  the  smallest  obstacles,  and  suffer  their  natural  pride 
to  be  subdued  by  supplication  and  prayer. 

The  English,  to  favor  their  liberty,  have  abolished  all  the 
intermediate  powers  of  which  their  monarchy  was  composed. 
They  have  a  great  deal  of  reason  to 'be  jealous  of  this  liberty; 
were  they  ever  to  be  so  unhappy  as  to  lose  it,  they  would  be  one 
of  the  most  servile  nations  upon  earth. 

Mr.  Law,  through  ignorance  both  of  a  republican  and  monarch- 
ical constitution,  was  one  of  the  greatest  promoters  of  absolute 


454  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

power  ever  known  in  Europe.  Besides  the  violent  and  extraor- 
dinary changes  owing  to  his  direction,  he  would  fain  suppress 
all  the  intermediate  ranks,  and  abolish  the  political  communities. 
He  was  dissolving  the  monarchy  by  his  chimerical  reimbursements, 
and  seemed  as  if  he  even  wanted  to  redeem  the  constitution. 

It  is  not  enough  to  have  intermediate  powers  in  a  monarchy; 
there  must  be  also  a  depositary  of  the  laws.  This  depositary 
can  only  be  the  judges  of  the  supreme  courts  of  justice,  who 
promulgate  the  new  laws,  and  revive  the  obsolete.  The  natural 
ignorance  of  the  nobility,  their  indolence  and  contempt  of  civil 
government,  require  that  there  should  be  a  body  invested  with 
the  power  of  reviving  and  executing  the  laws,  which  would  be 
otherwise  buried  in  oblivion.  The  prince's  council  are  not  a  proper 
depositary.  They  are  naturally  the  depositary  of  the  momentary 
will  of  the  prince,  and  not  of  the  fundamental  laws.  Besides,  the 
prince's  council  is  continually  changing;  it  is  neither  permanent 
nor  numerous;  neither  has  it  a  sufficient  share  of  the  confidence 
of  the  people;  consequently  it  is  incapable  of  setting  them  right 
in  difficult  conjunctures,  or  in  reducing  them  to  proper  obedience. 

Despotic  governments,  where  there  are  no  fundamental  laws, 
have  no  such  kind  of  depositary.  Hence  it  is  that  religion  has 
generally  so  much  influence  in  those  countries,  because  it  forms 
a  kind  of  permanent  depositary;  and  if  this  cannot  be  said  of 
religion,  it  may  of  the  customs  that  are  respected  instead  of  laws. 

5.     Of  the  Laws  in  Relation  to  the  Nature  of  a  Despotic  Government. 

From  the  nature  of  despotic  power  it  follows  that  the  single 
person  invested  with  this  power  commits  the  execution  of  it 
also  to  a  single  person.  A  man  whom  his  senses  continually 
inform  that  he  himself  is  everything  and  that  his  subjects  are 
nothing,  is  naturally  lazy,  voluptuous,  and  ignorant.  In  conse- 
quence of  this,  he  neglects  the  management  of  public  affairs. 
But  were  he  to  commit  the  administration  to  many,  there  would 
be  continual  disputes  among  them;  each  would  form  intrigues  to 
be  his  first  slave;  and  he  would  be  obliged  to  take  the  reins  into 
his  own  hands.  It  is,  therefore,  more  natural  for  him  to  resign 
it  to  a  vizir,  and  to  invest  him  with  the  same  power  as  himself. 
The  creation  of  a  vizir  is  a  fundamental  law  of  this  government. 

It  is  related  of  a  pope,  that  he  had  started  an  infinite  number 
of  difficulties  against  his  election,  from  a  thorough  conviction  of 
his  incapacity.  At  length  he  was  prevailed  on  to  accept  the  pon- 
tificate, and  resigned  the  administration  entirely  to  his  nephew. 
He  was  soon  struck  with  surprise,  and  said,  7  should  never  have 


MONTESQUIEU  455 

thought  that  these  things  were  so  easy.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  the  princes  of  the  East,  who,  being  educated  in  a  prison  where 
eunuchs  corrupt  their  hearts  and  debase  their  understandings, 
and  where  they  are  frequently  kept  ignorant  even  of  their  high 
rank,  when  drawn  forth  in  order  to  be  placed  on  the  throne, 
are  at  first  confounded:  but  as  soon  as  they  have  chosen  a  vizir, 
and  abandoned  themselves  in  their  seraglio  to  the  most  brutal 
passions,  pursuing,  in  the  midst  of  a  prostituted  court,  every 
capricious  extravagance,  they  would  never  have  dreamed  that 
they  could  find  matters  so  easy. 

The  more  extensive  the  empire,  the  larger  the  seraglio;  and  con- 
sequently the  more  voluptuous  the  prince.  Hence  the  more 
nations  such  a  sovereign  has  to  rule,  the  less  he  attends  to  the 
cares  of  government;  the  more  important  his  affairs,  the  less  he 
makes  them  the  subject  of  his  deliberations. 

3.     The  Principles  of  the  Forms  of  Government.1 

1.  Difference  between  the  Nature  and  Principle  of  Government. 
Having  examined  the  laws  in  relation  to  the  nature  of  each 

government,  we  must  investigate  those  which  relate  to  its  prin- 
ciple. 

There  is  this  difference  between  the  nature  and  principle  of 
government,  that  the  former  is  that  by  which  it  is  constituted, 
the  latter  that  by  which  it  is  made  to  act.  One  is  its  particular 
structure,  and  the  other  the  human  passions  which  set  it  in  motion. 

Now,  laws  ought  no  less  to  relate  to  the  principle  than  to  the 
nature  of  each  government.  We  must,  therefore,  inquire  into 
this  principle,  which  shall  be  the  subject  of  this  third  book. 

2.  Of  the  Principle  of  different  Governments. 

I  have  already  observed  that  it  is  the  nature  of  a  republican 
government,  that  either  the  collective  body  of  the  people,  or 
particular  families,  should  be  possessed  of  the  supreme  power; 
of  a  monarchy,  that  the  prince  should  have  this  power,  but  in 
the  execution  of  it  should  be  directed  by  established  laws;  of  a 
despotic  government,  that  a  single  person  should  rule  according 
to  his  own  will  and  caprice.  This  enables  me  to  discover  their 
three  principles,  which  are  thence  naturally  derived.  I  shall  begin 
with  a  republican  government,  and  in  particular  with  that  of 
democracy. 

3.  Of  the  Principle  of  Democracy. 

There  is  no  great  share  of  probity  necessary  to  support  a  mo- 
narchical or  despotic  government.     The  force  of  laws  in  one,  and 
iBook  III. 


456  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  prince's  arm  in  the  other,  are  sufficient  to  direct  and  main- 
tain the  whole.  But  in  a  popular  state,  one  spring  more  is  neces- 
sary, namely,  virtue. 

What  I  have  here  advanced  is  confirmed  by  the  unanimous 
testimony  of  historians,  and  is  extremely  agreeable  to  the  nature 
of  things.  For  it  is  clear  that  in  a  monarchy,  where  he  who 
commands  the  execution  of  the  laws  generally  thinks  himself 
above  them,  there  is  less  need  of  virtue  than  in  a  popular  govern- 
ment, where  the  person  intrusted  with  the  execution  of  the  laws 
is  sensible  of  his  being  subject  to  their  direction. 

Clear  is  it  also  that  a  monarch  who,  through  bad  advice  or 
indolence,  ceases  to  enforce  the  execution  of  the  laws,  may  easily 
repair  the  evil;  he  has  only  to  follow  other  advice;  or  to  shake  off 
this  indolence.     But  when,  in  a  popular  government,  there  is  a, 
suspension  of  the  laws,  as  this  can  proceed  only  from  the  corrupt  1 
tion  of  the  republic,  the  state  is  certainly  undone.  » * 

A  very  droll  spectacle  it  was  in  the  last  century  to  behold 
the  impotent  efforts  of  the  English  towards  the  establishment  of 
democracy.  As  they  who  had  a  share  in  the  direction  of  public 
affairs  were  void  of  virtue,  as  their  ambition  was  inflamed  by  the 
success  of  the  most  daring  of  their  members,  as  the  prevailing 
parties  were  successively  animated  by  the  spirit  of  faction,  the 
government  was  continually  changing:  the  people,  amazed  at  so 
many  revolutions,  in  vain  attempted  to  erect  a  commonwealth. 
At  length,  when  the  country  had  undergone  the  most  violent  shocks 
they  were  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  the  very  government  which 
they  had  so  wantonly  proscribed. 

When  Sulla  thought  of  restoring  Rome  to  her  liberty,  this  un- 
happy city  was  incapable  of  receiving  that  blessing.  She  had 
only  the  feeble  remains  of  virtue,  which  were  continually  diminish- 
ing. Instead  of  being  roused  from  her  lethargy  by  Caesar,  Tibe- 
rius, Caius  Claudius,  Nero,  and  Domitian,  she  riveted  every  day 
her  chains;  if  she  struck  some  blows,  her  aim  was  at  the  tyrant, 
not  at  the  tyranny. 

The  politic  Greeks,  who  lived  under  a  popular  government, 
knew  no  other  support  than  virtue.  The  modern  inhabitants  of 
that  country  are  entirely  taken  up  with  manufacture,  commerce, 
finances,  opulence,  and  luxury. 

When  virtue  is  banished,  ambition  invades  the  minds  of  those 
who  are  disposed  to  receive  it,  and  avarice  possesses  the  whole 
community.  The  objects  of  their  desires  are  changed;  what 
they  were  fond  of  before  has  become  indifferent;  they  were  free 
while  under  the  restraint  of  laws,  but  they  would  fain  now  be 


MONTESQUIEU  457 

free  to  act  against  law;  and  as  each  citizen  is  like  a  slave  who  has 
run  away  from  his  master,  that  which  was  a  maxim  of  equity  he 
calls  rigor;  that  which  was  a  rule  of  action  he  styles  constraint; 
and  to  precaution  he  gives  the  name  of  fear.  Frugality,  and  not 
the  thirst  of  gain,  now  passes  for  avarice.  Formerly  the  wealth 
of  individuals  constituted  the  public  treasure;  but  now  this  has 
become  the  patrimony  of  private  persons.  The  members  of  the 
commonwealth  riot  on  the  public  spoils,  and  its  strength  is  only 
the  power  of  a  few,  and  the  license  of  many. 

Athens  was  possessed  of  the  same  number  of  forces  when  she 
triumphed  so  gloriously  as  when  with  such  infamy  she  was  en- 
slaved. She  had  twenty  thousand  citizens,  when  she  defended 
the  Greeks  against  the  Persians,  when  she  contended  for  empire 
with  Sparta,  and  invaded  Sicily.  She  had  twenty  thousand  when 
Demetrius  Phalereus  numbered  them,  as  slaves  are  told  by  the 
head  in  a  market-place.  When  Philip  attempted  to  lord  it  over 
Greece,  and  appeared  at  the  gates  of  Athens,  she  had  even  then 
lost  nothing  but  time.  We  may  see  in  Demosthenes  how  difficult 
it  was  to  awaken  her;  she  dreaded  Philip,  not  as  the  enemy  of  her 
liberty,  but  of  her  pleasures.  This  famous  city,  which  had  with- 
stood so  many  defeats,  and  having  been  so  often  destroyed  had 
as  often  risen  out  of  her  ashes,  was  overthrown  at  Chaeronea,  and 
at  one  blow  deprived  of  all  hopes  of  resource.  What  does  it 
avail  her  that  Philip  sends  back  her  prisoners,  if  he  does  not  return 
her  men?  It  was  ever  after  as  easy  to  triumph  over  the  forces  of 
Athens  as  it  had  been  difficult  to  subdue  her  virtue. 

How  was  it  possible  for  Carthage  to  maintain  her  ground? 
When  Hannibal,  upon  his  being  made  praetor,  endeavored  to 
hinder  the  magistrates  from  plundering  the  republic,  did  not 
they  complain  of  him  to  the  Romans?  Wretches,  who  would  fain 
be  citizens  without  a  city,  and  be  beholden  for  their  riches  to 
their  very  destroyers!  Rome  soon  insisted  upon  having  three 
hundred  of  their  principal  citizens  as  hostages;  she  obliged  them 
next  to  surrender  their  arms  and  ships;  and  then  she  declared 
war.  From  the  desperate  efforts  of  this  defenseless  city,  one  may 
judge  of  what  she  might  have  performed  in  her  full  vigor,  and 
assisted  by  virtue. 

4.     Of  the  Principle  of  Aristocracy. 

As  virtue  is  necessary  in  a  popular  government,  it  is  requisite  ^ 
also  in  an  aristocracy.     True  it  is  that  in  the  latter  it  is  not  so 
absolutely  requisite. 

The  people,  who  in  respect  to  the  nobility  are  the  same  as  the 


458  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

subjects  with  regard  to  a  monarch,  are  restrained  by  their  laws. 
They  have,  therefore,  less  occasion  for  virtue  than  the  people 
in  a  democracy.  But  how  are  the  nobility  to  be  restrained? 
They  who  are  to  execute  the  laws  against  their  colleagues  will 
immediately  perceive  that  they  are  acting  against  themselves. 
Virtue  is  therefore  necessary  in  this  body,  from  the  very  nature 
of  the  constitution. 

An  aristocratic  government  has  an  inherent  vigor,  unknown 
to  democracy.  The  nobles  form  a  body,  who  by  their  preroga- 
tive, and  for  their  own  particular  interest,  restrain  the  people; 
it  is  sufficient  that  there  are  laws  in  being  to  see  them  executed. 

But  easy  as  it  may  be  for  the  body  of  the  nobles  to  restrain 
the  people,  it  is  difficult  to  restrain  themselves.  Such  is  the 
nature  of  this  constitution,  that  it  seems  to  subject  the  very 
same  persons  to  the  power  of  the  laws,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
exempt  them. 

Now  such  a  body  as  this  can  restrain  itself  only  in  two  ways: 
rjf  pither  by  a  very  eminent  virtue,  which  puts  the  nobility  in  some 
.measure  on  a  level  with  the  people,  and  may  be  the  means  of 
forming  a  great  republic;  or  by  an  inferior  virtue,  which  puts 
them  at  least  upon  a  level  with  one  another,  and  upon  this  their 
preservation  depends. 

Moderation  is  therefore  the  very  soul  of  this  government;  a 

/.moderation,  I  mean,  founded  on  virtue,  not  that  which  proceeds 
I  from  indolence  and  pusillanimity. 

5.     That  Virtue  is  not  the  Principle  of  a  Monarchical  Government. 

In  monarchies,  policy  effects  great  things  with  as  little  virtue  as 
possible.  Thus  in  the  nicest  machines,  art  has  reduced  the 
number  of  movements,  springs,  and  wheels. 

The  state  subsists  independently  of  the  love  of  our  country, 
of  the  thirst  of  true  glory,  of  self-denial,  of  the  sacrifice  of  our 
dearest  interests,  and  of  all  those  heroic  virtues  which  we  admire 
in  the  ancients,  and  to  us  are  known  only  by  tradition. 

The  laws  supply  here  the  place  of  those  virtues;  they  are  by 
no  means  wanted,  and  the  state  dispenses  with  them:  an  action 
performed  here  in  secret  is  in  some  measure  of  no  consequence. 

(Though  all  crimes  be  in  their  own  nature  public,  yet  there  is  a 
distinction  between  crimes  really  public  and  thqse  that  are  private, 
.  which  are  so  called  because  they  are  more  injurious  to  individuals 
than  to  the  community. 

Now  in  republics  private  crimes  are  more  public,  that  is,  they 
attack  the  constitution  more  than  they  do  the  individuals;  and 


MONTESQUIEU  459 

in  monarchies,  public  crimes  are  more  private,  that  is,  they  are 
more  prejudicial  to  private  people  than  to  the  constitution. 

I  beg  that  no  one  will  be  offended  with  what  I  have  been  saying: 
my  observations  are  founded  on  the  unanimous  testimony  of 
historians.  I  am  not  ignorant  that  virtuous  princes  are  so  very 
rare;  but  I  venture  to  affirm  that  in  a  monarchy  it  is  extremely 
difficult  for  the  people  to  be  virtuous. 

Let  us  compare  what  the  historians  of  all  ages  have  asserted 
concerning  the  courts  of  monarchs;  let  us  recollect  the  conversa- 
tions and  sentiments  of  people  of  all  countries,  in  respect  to  the 
wretched  character  of  courtiers,  and  we  shall  find  that  these  are 
not  airy  speculations,  but  truths  confirmed  by  a  sad  and  melan- 
choly experience. 

Ambition  in  idleness;  meanness  mixed  with  pride;  a  desire  of 
riches  without  industry;  aversion  to  truth;  flattery,  perfidy, 
violation  of  engagements,  contempt  of  civil  duties,  fear  of  the 
prince's  virtue,  hope  from  his  weakness,  but,  above  all,  a  perpetual 
ridicule  cast  upon  virtue,  are,  I  think,  the  characteristics  by  which 
most  courtiers  in  all  ages  and  countries  have  been  constantly 
distinguished.  Now,  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  for  the  leading 
men  of  the  nation  to  be  knaves,  and  the  inferior  sort  to  be  honest; 
for  the  former  to  be  cheats,  and  the  latter  to  rest  satisfied  with 
being  only  dupes. 

But  if  there  should  chance  to  be  some  unlucky  honest  man 
among  the  people,  Cardinal  Richelieu,  in  his  political  testament, 
seems  to  hint  that  a  prince  should  take  care  not  to  employ  him. 
So  true  is  it  that  virtue  is  not  the  spring  of  this  government!  It 
is  not  indeed  excluded,  but  it  is  not  the  spring  of  government. 

6.  In  what  Manner  Virtue  is  Supplied  in  a  Monarchical  Gov- 
ernment. 

But  it  is  high  time  for  me  to  have  done  with  this  subject,  lest 
I  should  be  suspected  of  writing  a  satire  against  monarchical 
government.  Far  be  it  from  me;  if  monarchy  wants  one  spring, 
it  is  provided  with  another.  Honor,  that  is,  the  prejudice  of 
every  person  and  rank,  supplies  the  place  of  the  political  virtue 
of  which  I  have  been  speaking,  and  is  everywhere  her  representa- 
tive :  here  it  is  capable  of  inspiring  the  most  glorious  actions,  and, 
joined  with  the  forc^e  of  laws,  may  lead  us  to  the  end  of  govern- 
ment as  well  as  virtue  itself. 

Hence,  in  well-regulated  monarchies,  they  are  almost  all  good 
subjects,  and  very  few  good  men;  for  to  be  a  good  man,  a 
good  intention  is  necessary,  and  we  should  love  our  country, 


460  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

not  so  much  on  our  own  account,  as  out  of  regard  to  the  com- 
munity. 

7.  Of  the  Principle  of  Monarchy. 

A  monarchical  government  supposes,  as  we  have  already 
observed,  preeminences  and  ranks,  as  likewise  a  noble  descent. 
Now  since  it  is  the  nature  of  honor  to  aspire  to  preferments  and 
titles,  it  is  properly  placed  in  this  government. 

Ambition  is  pernicious  in  a  republic.  But  in  a  monarchy  it 
has  some  good  effects;  it  gives  life  to  the  government,  and  is  at- 
tended with  this  advantage,  that  it  is  in  no  way  dangerous, 
because  it  may  be  continually  checked. 

It  is  with  this  kind  of  government  as  with  the  system  of  the 
universe,  in  which  there  is  a  power  that  constantly  repels  all 
bodies  from  the  center,  and  a  power  of  gravitation  that  attracts 
them  to  it.  Honor  sets  all  the  parts  of  the  body  politic  in  motion, 
and  by  its  very  action  connects  them;  thus  each  individual  ad- 
vances the  public  good,  while  he  only  thinks  of  promoting  his  own 
interest. 

True  it  is  that  philosophically  speaking  it  is  a  false  honor 
which  moves  all  the  parts  of  the  government;  but  even  this  false 
honor  is  as  useful  to  the  public  as  true  honor  could  possibly  be 
to  private  persons. 

Is  it  not  very  exacting  to  oblige  men  to  perform  the  most 
difficult  actions,  such  as  require  an  extraordinary  exertion  of 
fortitude  and  resolution,  without  other  recompense  than  that 
of  glory  and  applause?  , 

8.  That  Honor  is  not  the  Principle  of  Despotic  Government. 
Honor  is  far  from  being  the  principle  of  despotic  government: 

mankind  being  here  all  upon  a  level,  no  one  person  can  prefer 
himself  to  another;  and  as  on  the  other  hand  they  are  all  slaves, 
they  can  give  themselves  no  sort  of  preference. 

Besides,  as  honor  has  its  laws  and  rules,  as  it  knows  not  how 
to  submit;  as  it  depends  in  a  great  measure  on  a  man's  own 
caprice,  and  not  on  that  of  another  person;  it  can  be  found  only 
in  countries  in  which  the  constitution  is  fixed,  and  where  they 
are  governed  by  settled  laws. 

How  can  despotism  abide  with  honor?  The  one  glories  in  the 
contempt  of  life;  and  the  other  is  founded  on  the  power  of  taking 
it  away.  How  can  honor,  on  the  other  hand,  bear  with  despo- 
tism? The  former  has  its  fixed  rules,  and  peculiar  caprices;  but 
the  latter  is  directed  by  no  rule,  and  its  own  caprices  are  sub- 
versive of  all  others, 


MONTESQUIEU  461 

Honor,  therefore,  a  thing  unknown  in  arbitrary  governments, 
some  of  which  have  not  even  a  proper  word  to  express  it,  is  the 
prevailing  principle  in  monarchies;  here  it  gives  life  to  the  whole 
body  politic,  to  the  laws,  and  even  to  the  virtues  themselves. 

9.  Of  the  Principle  of  Despotic  Government. 

As  virtue  is  necessary  in  a  republic,  and  in  a  monarchy  honor, 
so  f gar  isTnecessary  in  a  despotic  government :  with  regard  to  virtue, 
there  is  no  occasion  for  it,  and  honor  would  be  extremely  dan-|/ 
gerous. 

Here  the  immense  power  of  the  prince  devolves  entirely  upon 
those  whom  he  is  pleased  to  intrust  with  the  administration. 
Persons  capable  of  setting  a  value  upon  themselves  would  be 
likely  to  create  disturbances.  Fear  must  therefore  depress  their 
spirits,  and  extinguish  even  the  least  sense  of  ambition. 

A  moderate  government  may,  whenever  it  pleases,  and  without 
the  least  danger,  relax  its  springs.  It  supports  itself  by  the  laws, 
and  by  its  own  internal  strength.  But  when  a  despotic  prince 
ceases  for  one  single  moment  to  uplift  his  arm,  when  he  cannot 
instantly  demolish  those  whom  he  has  intrusted  with  the  first 
employments,  all  is  over:  for  as  fear,  the  spring  of  this  government, 
no  longer  subsists,  the  people  are  left  without  a  protector. 

It  is  probably  in  this  sense  the  Cadis  maintained  that  the  Grand 
Seignior  was  not  obliged  to  keep  his  word  or  oath,  when  he  limited 
thereby  his  authority. 

It  is  necessary  that  the  people  should  be  judged  by  laws,  and 
the  great  men  by  the  caprice  of  the  prince,  that  the  lives  of  the 
lowest  subject  should  be  safe,  and  the  pasha's  head  ever  in  danger. 
We  cannot  mention  these  monstrous  governments  without  horror. 
The  Sophi  of  Persia,  dethroned  in  our  days  by  Mahomet,  the  son 
of  Miriveis,1  saw  the  constitution  subverted  before  this  resolution, 
because  he  had  been  too  sparing  of  blood. 

History  informs  us  that  the  horrid  cruelties  of  Domitian  struck 
such  a  terror  into  the  governors,  that  the  people  recovered 
themselves  a  little  during  his  reign.  Thus  a  torrent  overflows  one 
side  of  a  country,  and  on  the  other  leaves  fields  untouched,  where 
the  eye  is  refreshed  by  the  prospect  of  fine  meadows. 

10.  Difference  of  Obedience  in  Moderate  and  Despotic  Governments. 
In  despotic  states,  the  nature  of  government  requires  the  most 

passive  obedience;  and  when  once  the  prince's  will  is  made  known, 

it  ought  infallibly  to  produce  its  effect. 

Here  they  have  no  limitations  or  restrictions,  no  mediums, 
1  Sufi,  Mahmud,  Mir  Wa'iz  are  more  common  forms  of  these  names. 


462  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

terms,  equivalents,  or  remonstrances;  no  change  to  propose:  man  is 
a  creature  that  blindly  submits  to  the  absolute  will  of  the  sovereign. 

In  a  country  like  this  they  are  no  more  allowed  to  represent 
their  apprehensions  of  a  future  danger  than  to  impute  their  mis- 
carriage to  the  capriciousness  of  fortune.  Man's  portion  here, 
like  that  of  beasts,  is  instinct,  compliance,  and  punishment. 

Little  does  it  then  avail  to  plead  the  sentiments  of  nature,  filial 
respect,  conjugal  or  parental  tenderness,  the  laws  of  honor,  or 
want  of  health;  the  order  is  given,  and  that  is  sufficient. 

In  Persia,  when  the  king  has  condemned  a  person,  it  is  no 
longer  lawful  to  mention  his  name,  or  to  intercede  in  his  favor. 
Even  if  the  prince  were  intoxicated,  or  non  compos,  the  decree 
must  be  executed;  otherwise  he  would  contradict  himself,  and  the 
law  admits  of  no  contradiction.  This  has  been  the  way  of  thinking 
in  that  country  in  all  ages;  as  the  order  which  Ahasuerus  gave,  to 
exterminate  the  Jews,  could  not  be  revoked,  they  were  allowed  the 
liberty  of  defending  themselves. 

One  thing,  however,  may  be  sometimes  opposed  to  the  prince's 

will,  namely,  religion.     They  will  abandon,  nay  they  will  slay  a 

>arent,  if  the  prince  so  commands;  but  he  cannot  oblige  them  to 

ink  wine.     The  laws  of  religion  are  of  a  superior  nature,  because 

ley  bind  the  sovereign  as  well  as  the  subject.     But  with  respect 

the  law  of  nature,  it  is  otherwise;  the  prince  is  no  longer  sup- 
posed to  be  a  man. 

In  monarchical  and  moderate  states,  the  power  is  limited  by  its 
very  spring,  I  mean  by  honor,  which,  like  a  monarch,  reigns 
over  the  prince  and  his  people.  They  will  not  allege  to  their 
sovereign  the  laws  of  religion;  a  courtier  would  be  apprehensive  of 
rendering  himself  ridiculous.  But  the  laws  of  honor  will  be 
appealed  to  on  all  occasions.  Hence  arise  the  restrictions  neces- 
sary to  obedience;  honor  is  naturally  subject  to  whims,  by  which 
the  subject's  submission  will  be  ever  directed. 

Though  the  manner  of  obeying  be  different  in  these  two  kinds 
of  government,  the  power  is  the  same.  On  which  side  soever 
the  monarch  turns,  he  inclines  the  scale,  and  is  obeyed.  The  whole 
difference  is,  that  in  a  monarchy  the  prince  receives  instruction, 
at  the  same  time  that  his  ministers  have  greater  abilities,  and  are 
more  versed  in  public  affairs,  than  the  ministers  of  a  despotic 
government. 

ii.     Reflections  on  the  Preceding  Chapters. 

Such  are  the  principles  of  the  three  sorts  of  government:  which 
does  not  imply  that  in  a  particular  republic  they  actually  are, 


MONTESQUIEU  463 

but  that  they  ought  to  be,  virtuous;  nor  does  it  prove  that  in  a 
particular  monarchy  they  are  actuated  by  honor,  or  in  a  particular 
despotic  government  by  fear;  but  that  they  ought  to  be  directed 
by  these  principles,  otherwise  the  government  is  imperfect. 

4.  Political  Liberty  l 

1.  A  General  Idea. 

I  make  a  distinction  between  the  laws  that  establish  political 
liberty,  as  it  relates  to  the  constitution,  and  those  by  which  it  is 
established,  as  it  relates  to  the  citizen.  The  former  shall  be  the 
subject  of  this  book;  the  latter  I  shall  examine  in  the  next. 

2.  Different  Significations  of  the  Word  Liberty. 

There  is  no  word  that  admits  of  more  various  significations, 
and  has  made  more  varied  impressions  on  the  human  mind,  than 
that  of  liberty.  Some  have  taken  it  as  a  means  of  deposing  a 
person  on  whom  they  had  conferred  a  tyrannical  authority; 
others  for  the  power  of  choosing  a  superior  whom  they  are  obliged 
to  obey;  others  for  the  right  of  bearing  arms,  and  of  being  thereby 
enabled  to  use  violence;  others,  in  fine,  for  the  privilege  of  being!  p 
governed  by  a  native  of  their  own  country,  or  by  their  own  laws.  / 
A  certain  nation  for  a  long  time  thought  liberty  consisted  in  the 
privilege  of  wearing  a  long  beard.  Some  have  annexed  this 
name  to  one  form  of  government  exclusive  of  others:  those  who 
had  a  republican  taste  applied  it  to  this  species  of  polity;  those 
who  liked  a  monarchical  state  gave  it  to  monarchy.  Thus  they 
have  all  applied  the  name  of  liberty  to  the  government  most 
suitable  to  their  own  customs  and  inclinations :  and  as  in  republics 
the  people  have  not  so  constant  and  so  present  a  view  of  the 
causes  of  their  misery,  and  as  the  magistrates  seem  to  act  only  in 
conformity  to  the  laws,  hence  liberty  is  generally  said  to  reside  in 
republics,  and  to  be  banished  from  monarchies.  In  fine,  as  in 
democracies  the  people  seem  to  act  almost  as  they  please,  this 
sort  of  government  has  been  deemed  the  most  free,  and  the  power 
of  the  people  has  been  confounded  with  their  liberty. 

3.  In  what  Liberty  Consists. 

It  is  true  that  in  democracies  the  people  seem  to  act  as  they 
please;  but  political  liberty  does  not  consist  in  an  unlimited 
freedom.  In  governments,  that  is,  in  societies  directed  by  laws, 
liberty  can  consist  only  in  the  power  of  doing  what  we  ought  to 
will,  and  in  not  being  constrained  to  do  what  we  ought  not  to  will.  \ 

1  Book  XI,  chs.  i-vi.  '    jt 


464  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

We  must  have  continually  present  to  our  minds  the  difference 
between  independence  and  liberty.  Liberty  is  a  right  of  doing 
whatever  the  laws  permit,  and  if  a  citizen  could  do  what  they  forbid 
he  would  be  no  longer  possessed  of  liberty,  because  all  his  fellow- 
citizens  would  have  the  same  power. 

4.  The  same  Subject  Continued. 

Democratic  and  aristocratic  states  are  not  in  their  own  nature 
\  free.  Political  liberty  is  to  be  found  only  in  moderate  govern- 
ments; and  even  in  these  it  is  not  always  found.  It  is  there  only 
when  there  is  no  abuse  of  power.  But  constant  experience  shows 
us  that  every  man  invested  with  power  is  apt  to  abuse  it,  and  to 
carry  his  authority  as  far  as  it  will  go.  Is  it  not  strange,  though 
true,  to  say  that  virtue  itself  has  need  of  limits? 

To  prevent  this  abuse,  it  is  necessary  from  the  very  nature  of 
things  that  power  should  be  a  check  to  power.  A  government 
may  be  so  constituted  as  no  man  shall  be  compelled  to  do  things 
to  which  the  law  does  not  oblige  him,  nor  forced  to  abstain  from 
things  which  the  law  permits. 

5.  Of  the  End  or  View  of  Different  Governments. 

Though  all  governments  have  the  same  general  end,  which 
is  that  of  preservation,  yet  each  has  another  particular  object. 
Increase  of  dominion  was  the  object  of  Rome;  war,  that  of  Sparta; 
religion,  that  of  the  Jewish  laws;  commerce,  that  of  Marseilles; 
public  tranquillity,  that  of  the  laws  of  China;  navigation,  that  of 
the  laws  of  Rhodes;  natural  liberty,  that  of  the  policy  of  the  Sav- 
ages; in  general,  the  pleasures  of  the  prince,  that  of  despotic 
states;  that  of  monarchies,  the  prince's  and  the  kingdom's  glory; 
the  independence  of  individuals  is  the  end  aimed  at  by  the  laws  of 
Poland,  whence  results  the  oppression  of  the  whole. 

One  nation  there  is  also  in  the  world  that  has  for  the  direct  end 
of  its  constitution  political  liberty.  We  shall  presently  examine 
the  principles  on  which  this  liberty  is  founded;  if  they  are  sound, 
liberty  will  appear  in  its  highest  perfection. 

To  discover  political  liberty  in  a  constitution,  no  great  labor 
is  requisite.  If  we  are  capable  of  seeing  it  where  it  exists,  it  is 
soon  found,  and  we  need  not  go  far  in  search  of  it. 

6.  Of  the  Constitution  of  England. 

In  every  government  there  are  three  sorts  of  power:  the  legis- 
lative; the  executive  in  respect  to  things  dependent  on  the  law  of 
nations;  and  the  executive  in  regard  to  matters  that  depend  on 
the  civil  law. 


MONTESQUIEU  465 

By  virtue  of  the  first,  the  prince  or  magistrate  enacts  tem- 
porary or  perpetual  laws,  and  amends  or  abrogates  those  that 
have  been  already  enacted.  ^.By  the  second,  he  makes  peace  or 
war,  sends  or  receives  embassies,  establishes  the  public  security, 
and  provides  against  invasions.  By  the  third,  he  punishes 
criminals,  or  determines  the  disputes  that  arise  between  in- 
dividuals. The  latter  we  shall  call  the  judiciary  power,  and  the 
other  simply  the  executive  power  of  the  state. 

The  political  liberty  of  the  subject  is  a  tranquillity  of  mind 
arising  from  the  opinion  each  person  has  of  his  safety.  In  order 
to  have  this  liberty,  it  is  requisite  the  government  be  so  constituted 
as  one  man  need  not  be  afraid  of  another. 

When  the  legislative  and  executive  powers  are  united  in  the 
same  person,  or  in  the  same  body  of  magistrates,  there  can  be  no 
liberty;  because  apprehensions  may  arise,  lest  the  same  monarch 
or  senate  should  enact  tyrannical  laws,  to  execute  them  in  a 
tyrannical  manner. 

Again,  there  is  no  liberty  if  the  judicial  power  be  not  separated 
from  the  legislative  and  executive.  Were  it  joined  with  the  legis- 
lative, the  life  and  liberty  of  the  subject  would  be  exposed  to 
arbitrary  control;  for  the  judge  would  be  then  the  legislator^ 
Were  it  joined  to  the  executive  power,  the  judge  might  behave 
with  violence  and  oppression*  • 

There  would  be  an  end  of  everything,  were  the  same  man  or 
the  same  body,  whether  of  the  nobles  or  of  the  people,  to  exercise 
those  three  powers,  that  of  enacting  laws,  that  of  executing  the 
public  resolutions,  and  of  trying  the  causes  of  individuals. 

Most  kingdoms  in  Europe  enjoy  a  moderate  government 
because  the  prince  who  is  invested  with  the  two  first  powers 
leaves  the  third  to  his  subjects.  In  Turkey,  where  these  three 
powers  are  united  in  the  Sultan's  person,  the  subjects  groan  under 
the  most  dreadful  oppression. 

In  the  republics  of  Italy,  where  these  three  powers  are  united, 
there  is  less  liberty  than  in  our  monarchies.  Hence  their  govern- 
ment is  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  as  violent  methods  for  its 
support  as  even  that  of  the  Turks;  witness  the  state  inquisitors, 
and  the  lion's  mouth  into  which  every  informer  may  at  all  hours 
throw  his  written  accusations. 

In  what  a  situation  must  the  poor  subject  be  in  those  republics ! 
The  same  body  of  magistrates  are  possessed,  as  executors  of  the 
laws,  of  the  whole  power  they  have  given  themselves  in  quality 
of  legislators.  They  may  plunder  the  state  by  their  general 
determinations:  and  as  they  have  likewise  the  judiciary  power  in 


466  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

their  hands,  every  private  citizen  may  be  ruined  by  their  particular 
decisions. 

The  whole  power  is  here  united  in  one  body;  and  though  there 
is  no  external  pomp  that  indicates  a  despotic  sway,  yet  the  people 
feel  the  effects  of  it  every  moment. 

Hence  it  is  that  many  of  the  princes  of  Europe,  whose  aim  has 
been  leveled  at  arbitrary  power,  have  constantly  set  out  with 
uniting  in  their  own  persons  all  the  branches  of  magistracy,  and 
J  all  the  great  offices  of  state. 

I  allow  indeed  that  the  mere  hereditary  aristocracy  of  the 

Italian  republics  does  not  exactly  answer  to  the  despotic  power 

of  the  Eastern  princes.     The  number  of  magistrates  sometimes 

moderates  the  power  of  the  magistracy;  the  whole  body  of  the 

nobles  do  not  always  concur  in  the  same  design;  and  different 

tribunals  are  erected,  that  temper  each  other.     Thus  at  Venice 

the  legislative  power  is  in  the  council,  the  executive  in  the  pregadi, 

and  the  judicial  in  the  quarantia.      But   the  mischief  is,  that 

xfthese  different  tribunals  are  composed  of  magistrates  all  belonging 

Jto  the  same  body;  which  constitutes  almost  one  and  the  same 

•power. 

The  judicial  power  ought  not  to  be  given  to  a  standing  senate; 
it  should  be  exercised  by  persons  taken  from  the  body  of  the  people 
at  certain  times  of  the  year,  and  consistently  with  a  form  and 
manner  prescribed  by  law,  in  order  to  erect  a  tribunal  that  should 
last  only  so  long  as  necessity  requires. 

By  this  method  the  judicial  power,  so  terrible  to  mankind, 
not  being  annexed  to  any  particular  state  or  profession,  becomes, 
as  it  were,  invisible.  People  have  not  then  the  judges  continually 
present  to  their  view;  they  fear  the  office,  but  not  the  magistrate. 

In  accusations  of  a  deep  and  criminal  nature,  it  is  proper  the 
person  accused  should  have  the  privilege  of  choosing,  in  some 
measure,  his  judges,  in  concurrence  with  the  law;  or  at  least  he 
should  have  a  right  to  except  against  so  great  a  number  that  the 
remaining  part  may  be  deemed  his  own  choice. 

The  other  two  powers  may  be  given  rather  to  magistrates  or 
^permanent  bodies,  because  they  are  not  exercised  on  any  private 
subject;  one  being  no  more  than  the  general  will  of  the  state,  and 
the  other  the  execution  of  that  general  will. 

, ,     But  though  the  tribunals  ought  not  to  be  fixed,  the  judgments 

"  ought;  and  to  such  a  degree  as  to  be  ever  conformable  to  the  letter 

of  the  law.    Were  they  to  be  the  private  opinion  of  the  judge, 

people  would  then  live  in  society,  without  exactly  knowing  the 

nature  of  their  obligations. 


MONTESQUIEU  467 

The  judges  ought  likewise  to  be  of  the  same  rank  as  the  accused,/ — 
or,  in  other  words,  his  peers;  to  the  end  that  he  may  not  imagine 
he  is  fallen  into  the  hands  of  persons  inclined  to  treat  him  with 
rigor. 

If  the  legislature  leaves  the  executive  power  in  possession  of  a 
right  to  imprison  those  subjects  who  can  give  security  for  their 
good  behavior,  there  is  an  end  of  liberty;  unless  they  are  taken 
up,  in  order  to  answer  without  delay  to  a  capital  crime,  in  which 
case  they  are  really  free,  being  subject  only  to  the  power  of 
the  law. 

But  should  the  legislature  think  itself  in  danger  by  some  secret 
conspiracy  against  the  state,  or  by  a  correspondence  with  a 
foreign  enemy,  it  might  authorize  the  executive  power,  for  a  short 
and  limited  time,  to  imprison  suspected  persons,  who  in  that  case 
would  lose  their  liberty  only  for  a  while,  to  preserve  it  for  ever. 

And  this  is  the  only  reasonable  method  that  can  be  substituted  to 
the  tyrannical  magistracy  of  the  ephori,  and  to  the  state  in- 
quisitors of  Venice,  who  are  also  despotic. 

As  in  a  country  of  liberty,  every  man  who  is  supposed  a  free 
agent  ought  to  be  his  own  governor,  the  legislative  power  should 
reside  in  the  whole  body  of  the  people.  But  since  this  is  impossible 
in  large  states,  and  in  small  ones  is  subject  to  many  inconveniences, 
it  is  fit  the  people  should  transact  by  their  representatives  what 
they  cannot  transact  by  themselves. 

The  inhabitants  of  a  particular  town  are  much  better  acquainted 
with  its  wants  and  interests  than  with  those  of  other  places;  and 
are  better  judges  of  the  capacity  of  their  neighbors  than  of 
that  of  the  rest  of  their  countrymen.  The  members,  therefore, 
of  the  legislature  should  not  be  chosen  from  the  general  body  of 
the  nation;  but  it  is  proper  that  in  every  considerable  place  a 
representative  should  be  elected  by  the  inhabitants. 

The  great  advantage  of  representatives  is  their  capacity  of 
discussing  public  affairs.  For  this  the  people  collectively  are 
extremely  unfit,  which  is  one  of  the  chief  inconveniences  of  a 
democracy. 

It  is  not  at  all  necessary  that  the  representatives  who  have 
received  a  general  instruction  from  their  constituents  should  wait  s 
to  be  directed  on  each  particular  affair,  as  is  practised  in  the  diets 
of  Germany.  True  it  is  that  by  this  way  of  proceeding  the 
speeches  of  the  deputies  might  with  greater  propriety  be  called 
the  voice  of  the  nation;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  this  would  occasion 
infinite  delays,  would  give  each  deputy  a  power  of  controlling  the 
assembly;  and,  on  the  most  urgent  and  pressing  occasions,  the 


468  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

wheels  of  government  might  be  stopped  by  the  caprice  of  a  single 
person. 

When  the  deputies,  as  Mr.  Sidney  well  observes,  represent  a 
body  of  people,  as  in  Holland,  they  ought  to  be  accountable  to 
their  constituents;  but  it  is  a  different  thing  in  England,  where 
they  are  deputed  by  boroughs. 

_  All  the  inhabitants  of  the  several  districts  ought  to  have  a 
right  of  voting  at  the  election  of  a  representative,  except  such  as  are 
in  so  mean  a  situation  as  to  be  deemed  to  have  no  will  of  their  own. 

One  great  fault  there  was  in  most  of  the  ancient  republics,  that 
the  people  had  a  right  to  active  resolutions,  such  as  require  some 
execution,  a  thing  of  which  they  are  absolutely  incapable.  They 
ought  to  have  no  share  in  the  government  but  for  the  choosing  of 
representatives,  which  is  within  their  reach.  For  though  few  can 
tell  the  exact  degree  of  men's  capacities,  yet  there  are  none  but 
are  capable  of  knowing  in  general  whether  the  person  they  choose 
is  better  qualified  than  most  of  his  neighbors. 

Neither  ought  the  representative  body  to  be  chosen  for  the 
executive  part  of  government,  for  which  it  is  not  so  fit;  but  for 
the  enacting  of  laws,  or  to  see  whether  the  laws  in  being  are  duly 
executed,  a  thing  suited  to  their  abilities,  and  which  none  indeed 
but  themselves  can  properly  perform. 

In  such  a  state  there  are  always  persons  distinguished  by  their 
birth,  riches,  or  honors:  but  were  they  to  be  confounded  with 
the  common  people,  and  to  have  only  the  weight  of  a  single  vote 
like  the  rest,  the  common  liberty  would  be  their  slavery,  and  they 
would  have  no  interest  in  supporting  it,  as  most  of  the  popular 
resolutions  would  be  against  them.  The  share  they  have,  there- 
fore, in  the  legislature  ought  to  be  proportioned  to  their  other 
advantages  in  the  state;  which  happens  only  when  they  form  a 
body  that  has  a  right  to  check  the  license  of  the  people,  as  the 
people  have  a  right  to  oppose  any  encroachment  of  theirs. 

The  legislative  power  is  therefore  committed  to  the  body  of 
the  nobles,  and  to  that  which  represents  the  people,  each  having 
their  assemblies  and  deliberations  apart^  each  their  separate  views 
and  interests. 

Of  the  three  powers  above  mentioned,  the  judiciary  is  in  some 

measure  next  to  nothing:  there  remain,  therefore,  only  two;  and 

./as  these  have  need  of  a  regulating  power  to  moderate  them,  the 

part  of  the  legislative  body  composed  of  the  nobility  is  extremely 

proper  for  this  purpose. 

The  body  of  the  nobility  ought  to  be  hereditary.  In  the  first 
place  it  is  so  in  its  own  nature;  and  in  the  next  there  must  be  a 


MONTESQUIEU  469 

considerable  interest  to  preserve  its  privileges — privileges  that  in 
themselves  are  obnoxious  to  popular  envy,  and  of  course  in  a  free 
state  are  always  in  danger. 

But  as  a  hereditary  power  might  be  tempted  to  pursue  its  own 
particular  interests,  and  forget  those  of  the  people,  it  is  proper 
that  where  a  singular  advantage  may  be  gained  by  corrupting 
the  nobility,  as  in  the  laws  relating  to  the  supplies,  they  should 
have  no  other  share  in  the  legislation  than  the  power  of  rejecting, 
and  not  that  of  resolving. 

By  the  powewj[  resolving  I  mean  the  right  of  ordaining  by  their 
own  authority,  or  of  amending  what  has  been  ordained  by  others. 
By  the  power  of  rejecting  I  would  be  understood  to  mean  the  right 
of  annulling  a  resolution  taken  by  another;  which  was  the  power 
of  the  tribunes  at  Rome.  And  though  the  person  possessed  of 
the  privilege  of  rejecting  may  likewise  have  the  right  of  approving, 
yet  this  approbation  passes  for  no  more  than  a  declaration  that  he 
intends  to  make  no  use  of  his  privilege  of  rejecting,  and  is  derived 
from  that  very  privilege. 

The  executive  power  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  a  monarch, 
because  this  branch  of  government,  having  need  of  dispatch,  is 
better  administered  by  one  than  by  many:  on  the  other  hand, 
whatever  depends  on  the  legislative  power  is  oftentimes  better 
regulated  by  many  than  by  a  single  person. 

But  if  there  were  no  monarch,  and  the  executive  power  should ri 
be  committed  to  a  certain  number  of  persons  selected  from  the  ? 
legislative  body,  there  would  be  an  end  then  of  liberty;  by  reason  ' 
the  two  powers  would  be  united,  as  the  same  persons  would 
sometimes  possess,  and  would  be  always  able  to  possess,  a  share 
in  both.  >• ; 

Were  the  legislative  body  to  be  a  considerable  time  without  ; 
meeting,  this  would  likewise  put  an  end  to  liberty.    For  of  two 
things  one  would  naturally  follow:  either  that  there  would  be  no  / 
longer  any  legislative  resolutions,  and  then  the  state  would  fall 
into  anarchy;  or  that  these  resolutions  would  be  taken  by  the 
executive  power,  which  would  render  it  absolute* 

It  would  be  needless  for  the  legislative  body  to  continue  always 
assembled.  This  would  be  troublesome  to  the  representatives, 
and,  moreover,  would  cut  out  too  much  work  for  the  executive 
power,  so  as  to  take  off  its  attention  to  its  office,  and  oblige  it  to 
think  only  of  defending  its  own  prerogatives,  and  the  right  it  has 
to  execute. 

Again,  were  the  legislative  body  to  be  always  assembled,  it 
might  happen  to  be  kept  up  only  by  filling  the  places  of  the 


470  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

deceased  members  with  new  representatives;  and  in  that  case, 
if  the  legislative  body  were  once  corrupted,  the  evil  would  be  past 
all  remedy.  When  different  legislative  bodies  succeed  one  an- 
other, the  people  who  have  a  bad  opinion  of  that  which  is  actually 
sitting  may  reasonably  entertain  some  hopes  of  the  next:  but  were 
it  to  be  always  the  same  body,  the  people  upon  seeing  it  once 
corrupted  would  no  longer  expect  any  good  from  its  laws;  and  of 
course  they  would  either  become  desperate  or  fall  into  a  state  of 
indolence. 

The  legislative  body  should  not  meet  of  itself.  For  a  body  is 
supposed  to  have  no  will  but  when  it  is  met ;  and  besides,  were  it  not 
to  meet  unanimously,  it  would  be  impossible  to  determine  which 
was  really  the  legislative  body:  the  part  assembled,  or  the  other. 
And  if  it  had  a  right  to  prorogue  itself,  it  might  happen  never  to  be 
prorogued;  which  would  Be  extremely  dangerous,  in  case  it  should 
ever  attempt  to  encroach  on  the  executive  power.  Besides,  there 
are  seasons,  some  more  proper  than  others,  for  assembling  the 
legislative  body:  it  is  fit,  therefore,  that  the  executive  power 
should  regulate  the  time  of  meeting,  as  well  as  the  duration  of 
those  assemblies,  according  to  the  circumstances  and  exigencies 
of  a  state  known  to  itself. 

Were  the  executive  power  not  to  have  a  right  of  restraining  the 
encroachments  of  the  legislative  body,  the  latter  would  become 
despotic;  for  as  it  might  arrogate  to  itself  what  authority  it  pleased, 
it  would  soon  destroy  all  the  other  powers. 

But  it  is  not  proper,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  legislative 
power  should  have  a  right  to  stay  the  executive.  For  as  the  execu- 
tion has  its  natural  limits,  it  is  useless  to  confine  it;  besides,  the 
executive  power  is  generally  employed  in  momentary  operations. 
The  power,  therefore,  of  the  Roman  tribunes  was  faulty,  as  it 
put  a  stop  not  only  to  the  legislation,  but  likewise  to  the  executive 
part  of  government;  which  was  attended  with  infinite  mischief. 

But  if  the  legislative  power  in  a  free  state  has  no  right  to  stay 
the  executive,  it  has  a  right  and  ought  to  have  the  means  of 
examining  in  what  manner  its  laws  have  been  executed;  an  ad- 
vantage which  this  government  has  over  that  of  Crete  and  Sparta, 
where  the  cosmi  and  the  ephori  gave  no  account  of  their  ad- 
ministration. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  issue  of  that  examination,  the  legis- 
lative body  ought  not  to  have  a  power  of  arraigning  the  person, 
nor,  of  course,  the  conduct,  of  him  who  is  intrusted  with  the  execu- 
tive power.  His  person  should  be  sacred,  because  as  it  is  necessary 
for  the  good  of  the  state  to  prevent  the  legislative  body  from 


MONTESQUIEU  471 

rendering  themselves  arbitrary,  the  moment  he  is  accused  or  tried 
there  is  an  end  of  liberty. 

In  this  case  the  state  would  be  no  longer  a_monarchy,  but  a 
kind  of  republic,  though  not  a  free  government.  But  as  the 
person  intrusted  with  the  executive  power  cannot  abuse  it  without 
bad  counsellors,  and  such  as  have  the  laws  as  ministers,  though 
the  laws  protect  them  as  subjects,  these  men  may  be  examined 
and  punished — an  advantage  which  this  government  has  over 
that  of  Gnidus,  where  the  law  allowed  of  no  such  thing  as  calling 
the  amymones  to  an  account,  even  after  their  administration; 
and  therefore  the  people  could  never  obtain  any  satisfaction  for 
the  injuries  done  them. 

Though,  in  general,  the  judicial  power  ought  not  to  be  united 
with  any  part  of  the  legislative,  yet  this  is  liable  to  three  exceptions, 
founded  on  the  particular  interest  of  the  party  accused. 

The  great  are  always  obnoxious  to  popular  envy;  and  were  they 
to  be  judged  by  the  people,  they  might  be  in  danger  from  their 
judges,  and  would,  moreover,  be  deprived  of  the  privilege  which 
the  meanest  subject  is  possessed  of  in  a  free  state,  of  being  tried 
by  his  peers.  The  nobility,  for  this  reason,  ought  not  to  be  cited 
before  the  ordinary  courts  of  judicature,  but  before  that  part  of 
the  legislature  which  is  composed  of  their  own  body. 

It  is  possible  that  the  law,  which  is  clear-sighted  in  one  sense, 
and  blind  in  another,  might,  in  some  cases,  be  too  severe.  But 
as  we  have  already  observed,  the  national  judges  are  no  more 
than  the  mouth  that  pronounces  the  words  of  the  law,  mere 
passive  beings,  incapable  of  moderating  either  its  force  or  rigor. 
That  part,  therefore,  of  the  legislative  body,  which  we  have  just 
now  observed  to  be  a  necessary  tribunal  on  another  occasion,  is 
also  a  necessary  tribunal  in  this;  it  belongs  to  its  supreme  authority 
to  moderate  the  law  in  favor  of  the  law  itself,  by  mitigating  the 
sentence. 

It  might  also  happen  that  a  subject  intrusted  with  the  adminis- 
tration of  public  affairs  may  infringe  the  rights  of  the  people, 
and  be  guilty  of  crimes  which  the  ordinary  magistrates  either 
could  not  or  would  not  punish.  But,  in  general,  the  legislative 
power  cannot  try  causes:  and  much  less  can  it  try  this  particular 
case,  where  it  represents  the  party  aggrieved,  which  is  the  people. 
It  can  only,  therefore,  impeach.  But  before  what  court  shall  it 
bring  its  impeachment?  Must  it  go  and  demean  itself  before 
the  ordinary  tribunals,  which  are  its  inferiors,  and,  being  composed, 
moreover,  of  men  who  are  chosen  from  the  people  as  well  as  itself, 
will  naturally  be  swayed  by  the  authority  of  so  powerful  an 


472  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

accuser?  No:  in  order  to  preserve  the  dignity  of  the  people,  and 
the  security  of  the  subject,  the  legislative  part  which  represents 
the  people  must  bring  in  its  charge  before  the  legislative  part 
which  represents  the  nobility,  who  have  neither  the  same  interests 
nor  the  same  passions. 

Here  is  an  advantage  which  this  government  has  over  most 
of  the  ancient  republics,  where  this  abuse  prevailed,  that  the 
people  were  at  the  same  time  both  judge  and  accuser. 
I     The  executive  power,  pursuant  of  what  has  been  already  said, 
Bought  to  have  a  share  in  the  legislature  by  the  power  of  rejecting, 
otherwise  it  would  soon  be  stripped  of  its  prerogative.     But  should 
the  legislative  power  usurp  a  share  of  the  executive,  the  latter 
would  be  equally  undone. 

If  the  prince  were  to  have  a  part  in  the  legislature  by  the  power 
of  resolving,  liberty  would  be  lost.  But  as  it  is  necessary  he 
should  have  a  share  in  the  legislature  for  the  support  of  his 
own  prerogative,  this  share  must  consist  in  the  power  of 
rejecting. 

The  change  of  government  at  Rome  was  owing  to  this,  that 
neither  the  senate,  who  had  one  part  of  the  executive  power,  nor 
the  magistrates,  who  were  intrusted  with  the  other,  had  the 
right  of  rejecting,  which  was  entirely  lodged  in  the  people. 

Here  then  is  the  fundamental  constitution  of  the  government 
I    we  are  treating  of.     The  legislative  body  being  composed  of* 
i    two  parts,  they  check  one  another  by  the  mutual  privilege  of ' 
[\  rejecting.     They  are  both  restrained  by  the  executive  power,  as  i 
fl  v  the  executive  is  by  the  legislative. 

These  three  powers  should  naturally  form  a  state  of  repose 

or  inaction.     But  as  there  is  a  necessity  for  movement  in  the 

\   course  of  human  affairs,  they  are  forced  to  move,  but  still  in 

concert. 

^jj     As  the  executive  power  has  no  other  part  in  the  legislative  ; 
'/than  the  privilege  of  rejecting,  it  can  have  no  share  in  the  public* 
*  debates.     It  is  not  even  necessary  that  it  should  propose,  because 
as  it  may  always  disapprove  of  the  resolutions  that  shall  be 
taken,  it  may  likewise  reject  the  decisions  on  those  proposals 
which  were  made  against  its  will. 

In  some  ancient  commonwealths,  where  public  debates  were 
carried  on  by  the  people  in  a  body,  it  was  natural  for  the  executive 
power  to  propose  and  debate  in  conjunction  with  the  people; 
otherwise  their  resolutions  must  have  been  attended  with  a 
strange  confusion. 
Were  the  executive  power  to  determine  the  raising  of  public 


MONTESQUIEU  473 

money,  otherwise  than  by  giving  its  consent,  liberty  would  be  at 
an  end;  because  it  would  become  legislative  in  the  most  important 
point  of  legislation.- 

If  the  legislative  power  were  to  settle  the  subsidies,  not  from  year 
to  year,  but  for  ever,  it  would  run  the  risk  of  losing  its  liberty, 
because  the  executive  power  would  be  no  longer  dependent;  and 
when  once  it  were  possessed  of  such  a  perpetual  right,  it  would  be 
a  matter  of  indifference  whether  it  held  it  of  itself  or  of  another. 
The  same  may  be  said  if  it  should  come  to  a  resolution  of  intrusting, 
not  an  annual,  but  a  perpetual  command  of  the  fleets  and  armies 
to  the  executive  power. 

To  prevent  the  executive  power  from  being  able  to  oppress, 
it  is  requisite  that  the  armies  with  which  it  is  intrusted  should 
consist  of  the  people,  and  have  the  same  spirit  as  the  people,  as 
was  the  case  at  Rome  till  the  time  of  Marius,  To  obtain  this 
end,  there  are  only  two  ways:  either  the  persons  employed 
in  the  army  should  have  sufficient  property  to  answer  for  their 
conduct  to  their  fellow-subjects,  and  be  enlisted  only  for  a  year, 
as  was  customary  at  Rome;  or  if  there  should  be  a  standing  army, 
composed  chiefly  of  the  most  despicable  part  of  the  nation,  the 
legislative  power  should  have  a  right  to  disband  them  as  soon  as 
it  pleased;  the  soldiers  should  live  in  common  with  the  rest  of  the 
people;  and  no  separate  camp,  barracks,  or  fortress  should  be 
suffered. 

When  once  an  army  is  established,  it  ought  not  to  depend 
immediately  on  the  legislative,  but  on  the  executive,  power;  and 
this  from  the  very  nature  of  the  thing,  its  business  consisting 
more  in  action  than  in  deliberation. 

It  is  natural  for  mankind  to  set  a  higher  value  upon  courage 
than  timidity,  on  activity  than  prudence,  on  strength  than  counsel. 
Hence  the  army  will  ever  despise  a  senate,  and  respect  their  own 
officers.  They  will  naturally  slight  the  orders  sent  them  by  a  body 
of  men  whom  they  look  upon  as  cowards,  and  therefore  unworthy 
to  command  them.  So  that  as  soon  as  the  troops  depend  entirely 
on  the  legislative  body,  it  becomes  a  military  government;  and 
if  the  contrary  has  ever  happened,  it  has  been  owing  to  some 
extraordinary  circumstances.  It  is  because  the  army  was  always 
kept  divided;  it  is  because  it  was  composed  of  several  bodies  that 
depended  each  on  a  particular  province;  it  is  because  the  capital 
towns  were  strong  places,  defended  by  their  natural  situation, 
and  not  garrisoned  with  regular  troops.  Holland,  for  instance,  is 
still  safer  than  Venice;  she  might  drown  or  starve  the  revolted 
troops;  for  as  they  are  not  quartered  in  towns  capable  of  furnishing 


474  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

them  with  necessary  subsistence,  this  subsistence  is  of   course 
precarious. 

In  perusing  the  admirable  treatise  of  Tacitus,  On  the  Manners} 
of  the  Germans,  we  find  it  is  from  that  nation  the  English  havej 
borrowed  the  idea  of  their  political  government.  This  beautiful 
system  was  invented  first  in  the  woods. 

As  all  human  things  have  an  end,  the  state  we  are  speaking  of 
will  lose  its  liberty,  will  perish.     Have  not  Rome,  Sparta  and 
Carthage  perished?    It  will  perish  when  the  legislative  power} 
shall  be  more  corrupt  than  the  executive. 

It  is  not  my  business  to  examine  whether  the  English  actually 
enjoy  this  liberty  or  not.     Sufficient  it  is  for  my  purpose  to  observe  / . 
that  it  is  established  by  their  laws;  and  I  inquire  no  further. 
t-   Neither  do  I  pretend  by  this  to  undervalue  other  governments, 
nor  to  say  that  this  extreme  political  liberty  ought  to  give  un- 
easiness to  those  who  have  only  a  moderate  share  of  it.    How 
should  I  have  any  such  design,  I  who  think  that  even  the  highest 
refinement  of  reason  is  not  always  desirable,  and  that  mankind  • 
generally  find  their  account  better  in  mediums  than  in  extremes? 

Harrington,  in  his  Oceana,  has  also  inquired  into  the  utmost 
degree  of  liberty  to  which  the  constitution  of  a  state  may  be  carried. 
But  of  him  indeed  it  may  be  said  that  for  want  of  knowing  the 
nature  of  real  liberty  he  busied  himself  in  pursuit  of  an  imaginary 
one;  and  that  he  built  a  Chalcedon,  though  he  had  a  Byzantium- 
before  his  eyes. 

SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

Saintsbury,  George,  "Montesquieu,"  in  Encyclopedia  Britannica. 

Vian,  Histoire  de  Montesquieu. 

Dedieu,  Montesquieu  et  la  tradition  politique  anglaise  en  France.    Les  sources 

anglaises  de  "V Esprit  des  lois." 
Sorel,  Montesquieu. 

The  same,  translated  by  Gustave  Masson. 
Dunning,  Political  Theories  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  pp.  391-394. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  Political  Theories,  from  Luther  to  Montesquieu,  ch.  xii,  §§  2-8. 

Pollock,  History  of  the  Science  of  Politics,  pp.  85-9. 

Flint,  Historical  Philosophy  in  France  and  French  Belgium  and  Switzerland, 

pp.  262-280. 

Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  II,  pp.  329-399. 
Franck,  Reformateurs  et  publicistes  de  I' Europe,  dix-huitieme  siecle,  pp.  137- 

283. 
Brunetiere,  Etudes  critiques  sur  Vhisloire  de  la  litlerature  fran^aise,  4me  serie, 

pp.  243-265. 

Villemain,  Tableau  de  litterature  au  X  VHIme  siecle,  Tome  I,  leq ons  xiv,  xv. 
Bluntschli,  Geschichle  der  Staatstheorien,  pp.  298-316. 


ROUSSEAU 


XVHI.    JEAN  JACQUES  ROUSSEAU  (1712-1778) 

INTRODUCTION 

The  Esprit  des  Lois,  though  empirical  in  method,  was  not  in- 
tended to  reflect  contemporary  conditions  in  France  or  to  afford  a 
solution  for  the  social  problems  of  the  vage.  The  great  work  which 
in  its  main  doctrines  was  directed  towards  the  sources  of  political 
injustice  in  France  in  the  eighteenth  century,  is  the  Social  Co~ntract 
of  Rousseau.  Though  the  style  of  this  work  is  abstract  and  dog- 
matic, its  practical  influence  was  unmistakable.  Its  doctrines  of 
the  absolute  and  inalienable  sovereignty  of  the  people  and  of  the 
subordinacy  of  all  governing  agencies,  hereditary  as  well  as  elec- 
tive, were  stated  in  such  clear  and  eloquent  terms  as  to  appeal 
powerfully  to  the  imagination  and  emotions  of  the  men  of  the 
French  Revolution.  The  close  influence  of  the  SociaL£o_ntract,  in 
ideas  and  terminology,  upon  the  French  "Declaration  of  the 
Rights  of  Man"  is  very  manifest. 

It  is  impossible  to  summarize  in  a  few  sentences  the  varied  life, 
singular  character  and  complex  work  of  Rousseau.  He  was  born 
in  Geneva  of  parents  of  French  Protestant  ancestry.  He  had  no 
stable  or  practical  training  of  any  sort.  He  ran  away  from  home 
when  sixteen  years  of  age,  and  thereafter,  for  twenty  years  he  led 
a  very  diversified  career,  residing  in  many  different  places,  chiefly 
in  France,  and  trying  many  pursuits  without  success.  During 
this  period  he  was  without  regular  occupation,  spending  much  of 
his  time  in  aimless  wanderings  in  the  country.  In  these  journeys 
he  took  some  note  of  the  ideas  and  feelings  of  the  poorer  people 
with  whom  he  came  in  contact;  and  in  his  sojourns  he  devoted 
some  attention  to  study  of  philosophy  and  practice  in  writing^ 
In  the  early  forties  through  the  support  of  wealthy  patrons  and 
the  friendship  of  literary  men  he  established  himself  at  Paris 
and  did  some  miscellaneous  writing,  Diderot  accepting  him  as  a 
contributor  to  the  Encyclopedia.  He  came  into  general  literary 
reputation  in  1 749.  In  that  year  the  Academy  of  Dijon  announced 
as  the  subject  for  its  prize  essay:  "Has  the  restoration  of  the 

477 


478  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

sciences  contributed  to  purify  or  to  corrupt  manners?  "  Rousseau 
competed,  and  secured  the  prize.  Assuming  a  former  state  of 
society  in  which  the  members  were  in  a  condition  of  innocence,  he 
traced  the  present  evils  of  society  to  the  thirst  for  knowledge  and 
to  the  adulation  of  literary  culture  and  of  artificialities  introduced 
by  civilization.  In  1754,  in  a  similar  competition,  he  wrote  his 
second  discourse,  the  subject  being  "What  is  the  origin  of  in- 
equality among  men,  and  is  it  authorized  by  natural  law?"  In 
this  he  committed  the  error,  common  to  political  writers  of  his 
time,  of  describing  fully,  without  evidence,  the  former  conditions 
of  men  in  natural  equality  and  harmony. 

Rousseau's  great  work  in  political  theory — the  Contrat  Social — 
appeared  in  1762.  Meanwhile  he  had  published  highly  successful 
dramatic  and  literary  works.  The  Contrat  Social  and  the  £mile 
(his  celebrated  work  on  education,  published  the  same  year£ 
aroused  the  opposition  of  the  orthodox  in  morals,  religion,  politics, 
and  philosophy.  To  escape  threatened  persecution  he  had  to 
become  an  exile,  first  to  Switzerland  and  thence  to  England. 
The  last  decade  of  his  life  he  spent  in  retirement  in  Paris,  com- 
pleting his  Confessions. 

Like  Hobbes  and  Locke,  Rousseau  assumes  a  pre-political  state 
of  nature,  and  determines  the  rights  and  duties  of  the  members 
of  political  society  through  an  analysis  of  the  contractual  founda- 
tion of  civil  order.  The  state  of  nature,  described  in  the  Discourse' 
on  Inequality,  is  pictured  as  a  happy  condition,  and  political  or- 
ganization is  represented  as  having  been  introduced  as  a  means  of 
conserving  rights  which  originate  in  that  state,  and  not  as  a  means 
of  escape  from  an  intolerable  situation.  The  points  upon  which 
comparison  may  be  profitably  made  between  Rousseau's  theory 
and  that  of  his  predecessors  of  the  social-contract  school,  are 
suggested  in  the  following  summary  of  the  salient  points  of  the 
Social  Contract: 

The  legitimate  basis  of  a  political  society  is  a  contract;  the 
parties  to  the  contract  are  all  the  members  of  the  society;  the 
terms  are  that  each  individual  in  becoming  a  member  of  the  so- 
ciety surrenders,  to  the  control  of  the  general  will  of  the  members, 
all  his  natural  rights  which  are  useful  to  the  society.  In  accord- 
ance with  the  origin  of  political  society,  inalienable  sovereignty 
rests  in  the  people.  Their  will  is  expressed  in  laws,  the  execution 


ROUSSEAU  479 

of  which  is  in  the  hands  of  the  government — a  body  created  by,  and, 
therefore,  subordinate  to,  the  people* 

READINGS  FROM  THE  SOCIAL  CONTRACT1 

1.     The  Problem  of  Political  Philosophy2 

Introductory  Note. 

I  wish  to  inquire  whether,  taking  men  as  they  are  and  laws  as 
they  can  be  made,  it  is  possible  to  establish  some  just  and  certain 
rule  of  administration  in  civil  affairs.  In  this  investigation  I 
shall  always  strive  to  reconcile  what  right  permits  with  what 
interest  prescribes,  so  that  justice  and  utility  may  not  be  severed. 
1  enter  upon  this  inquiry  without  demonstrating  the  importance 
of  my  subject.  I  shall  be  asked  whether  I  am  a  prince  or  a 
legislator  that  I  write  on  politics.  I  reply  that  I  am  not;  and 
that  it  is  for  this  very  reason  that  I  write  on  politics.  If  I  were 
a  prince  or  a  legislator,  I  should  not  waste  my  time  in  saying 
what  ought  to  be  done;  I  should  do  it  or  remain  silent. 

Having  been  born  a  citizen  of  a  free  state,  and  a  member  of 
the  sovereign  body,  however  feeble  an  influence  my  voice  may 
have  in  public  affairs,  the  right  to  vote  upon  them  is  sufficient  to 
impose  on  me  the  duty  of  informing  myself  about  them;  and 
I  feel  happy,  whenever  I  meditate  on  governments,  always, to 
discover  in  my  researches  new  reasons  for  loving  that  of  my  own 
country. 

Ch.  i.     Subject  of  the  First  Book. 

Man  is  born  fr^e,  and  everywhere  he  is  in  chains.  Many  a  one 
believes  himself  the  master  of  others,  and  yet  he  is  a  greater  slave 
than  they.  How  has  this  change  come  about?  I  do  not  know. 
What  can  render  it  legitimate?  I  believe  that  I  can  settle  this 
question. 

If  I  considered  only  force  and  the  results  that  proceed  from  it, » 
I  should  say  that  so  long  as  a  people  is  compelled  to  obey  and 
does  obey,  it  does  well;  but  that,  so  soon  as  it  can  shake  off  the . 
yoke  and  does  shake  it  off,  it  does  better;  for,  if  men  recover 
their  freedom  by  virtue  of  the  same  right  by  which  it  was  taken 
away,  either  they  are  justified  in  resuming  it,  or  there  was  no 
justification  for  depriving  them  of  it^j  But  the  social  order  is  a 

1  The  selections  are  from  The  Social  Contract,  translated  by  Henry  J.  Tozer. 
Third  edition.    London,  1902.    Published  by  Swan  Sonnenschein  &  Co. 
2 Book  I,  Introductory  Note,  chs.  i-iii,  and  ch.  iv  (in  part). 


480  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

sacred  right  which  serves  as  a  foundation  for  all  others.  This 
right,  however,  does  not  come  from  nature.  It  is  therefore  based 
on  conventions.  The  question  is  to  know  what  these  conventions 
are.  Before  coming  to  that,  I  must  establish  what  I  have  just 
laid  down. 


1 


Ch.  ii.     Primitive  Societies. 

The  earliest  of  all  societies,  and  the  only  natural  one,  is  the 
family;  yet  children  remain  attached  to  their  father  only  so  long\ 
as  they  have  need  of  him  for  their  own  preservation.  As  soon 
as  this  need  ceases,  the  natural  bond  is  dissolved.  The  children 
being  freed  from  the  obedience  which  they  owed  to  their  father, 
and  the  father  from  the  cares  which  he  owed  to  his  children, 
become  equally  independent.  If  they  remain  united,  it  is  no 
longer  naturally  but  voluntarily;  and  the  family  itself  is  kept 
together  only  by  convention. 

This  common  liberty  is  a  consequence  of  man's  nature.  His 
first  law  is  to  attend  to  his  own  preservation,  his  first  cares  are 
those  which  he  owes  to  himself;  and  as  soon  as  he  comes  to  years 
of  discretion,  being  sole  judge  of  the  means  adapted  for  his  own 
preservation,  he  becomes  his  own  master. 

The  family  is,  then,  if  you  will,  the  primitive  model  of  political 
societies;  the  chief  is  the  analogue  of  the  father,  while  the  people 
represent  the  children;  and  all,  being  born  free  and  equal,  alienate 
their  liberty  only  for  their  own  advantage.  The  whole  difference 
is  that  in  the  family  the  father's  love  for  his  children  repays 
him  for  the  care  that  he  bestows  upon  them;  while  in  the  state 
the  pleasure  of  ruling  makes  up  for  the  chief's  lack  of  love  for 
his  people. 

Grotius  denies  that  all  human  authority  is  established  for  the 
benefit  of  the  governed,  and  he  cites  slavery  as  an  instance.  His 
invariable  mode  of  reasoning  is  to  establish  right  by  fact.  A 
juster  method  might  be  employed,  but  none  more  favorable  to 
tyrants. 

It  is  doubtful,  then,  according  to  Grotius,  whether  the  human 
race  belongs  to  a  hundred  men,  or  whether  these  hundred  men 
belong  to  the  human  race;  and  he  appears  throughout  his  book 
to  incline  to  the  former  opinion,  which  is  also  that  of  Hobbes. 
In  this  way  we  have  mankind  divided  like  herds  of  cattle,  each 
of  which  has  a  master,  who  looks  after  it  in  order  to  devour  it. 

Just  as  a  herdsman  is  superior  in  nature  to  his  herd,  so  chiefs, 
who  are  the  herdsmen  of  men,  are  superior  in  nature  to  their 
people.  Thus,  according  to  Philo's  account,  the  Emperor  Caligula 


ROUSSEAU  481 

reasoned,  inferring  truly  enough  from  this  analogy  that  kings  are 
gods,  or  that  men  are  brutes. 

The  reasoning  of  Caligula  is  tantamount  to  that  of  Hobbes  and 
Grotius.  Aristotle,  before  them  all,  had  likewise  said  that  men 
are  not  naturally  equal,  but  that  some  are  born  for  slavery  and 
others  for  dominion. 

Aristotle  was  right,  but  he  mistook  the  effect  for  the  cause. 
Every  man  born  in  slavery  is  born  for  slavery;  nothing  is  more 
certain.  Slaves  lose  everything  in  their  bonds,  even  the  desire  to 
escape  from  them;  they  love  their  servitude  as  the  companions 
of  Ulysses  loved  their  brutishness.  If,  then,  there  are  slaves  by 
nature,  it  is  because  there  have  been  slaves  contrary  to  nature. 
The  first  slaves  were  made  such  by  force;  their  cowardice  kept 
them  in  bondage. 

I  have  said  nothing  about  King  Adam  nor  about  Emperor 
Noah,  the  father  of  three  great  monarchs  who  shared  the  universe, 
like  the  children  of  Saturn  with  whom  they  are  supposed  to  be 
identical.  I  hope  that  my  moderation  will  give  satisfaction;  for, 
as  I  am  a  direct  descendant  of  one  of  these  princes,  and  perhaps 
of  the  eldest  branch,  how  do  I  know  whether,  by  examination  of 
titles,  I  might  not  find  myself  the  lawful  king  of  the  human  race? 
Be  that  as  it  may,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  Adam  was  sovereign 
of  the  world,  as  Robinson  was  of  his  island,  so  long  as  he  was  its 
sole  inhabitant;  and  it  was  an  agreeable  feature  of  that  empire 
that  the  monarch,  secure  on  his  throne,  had  nothing  to  fear  from 
rebellions,  or  wars,  or  conspirators. 

Ch.  iii.     The  Right  of  the  Strongest. 

The  strongest  man  is  never  strong  enough  to  be  always  master, 
unless  he  transforms  his  power  into  right,  and  obedience  into 
duty.  Hence  the  right  of  the  strongest — a  right  apparently 
assumed  in  irony,  and  really  established  in  principle.  But  will 
this  phrase  never  be  explained  to  us?  Force  is  a  physical  power; 
I  do  not  see  what  morality  can  result  from  its  effects.  To  yield 
to  force  is  an  act  of  necessity,  not  of  will;  it  is  at  most  an  act  of 
prudence.  In  what  sense  can  it  be  a  duty? 

\  \Let  us  assume  for  a  moment  this  pretended  right.  I  say  that 
nothing  results  from  it  but  inexplicable  nonsense;  for  if  force 
constitutes  right,  the  effect  changes  with  the  cause,  and  any  force 
which  overcomes  the  first  succeeds  to  its  rights.  As  soon  as  men 
can  disobey  with  impunity,  they  may  do  so  legitimately;  and 
since  the  strongest  is  always  in  the  right,  the  only  thing  is  to  act 
in  such  a  way  that  one  may  be  the  strongest.  But  what  sort  of 


482  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

a  right  is  it  that  perishes  when  force  ceases?  If  it  is  necessary  to 
obey  by  compulsion,  there  is  no  need  to  obey  from  duty;  and  if 
men  are  no  longer  forced  to  obey,  obligation  is  at  an  end.  We 
see,  then,  that  this  word  right  adds  nothing  to  force;  it  here  means 
nothing  at  all.  \\ 

Obey  the  powers  that  be.  If  that  means,  Yield  to  force,  the 
precept  is  good  but  superfluous;  I  reply  that  it  will  never  be. 
violated.  All  power  comes  from  God,  I  admit;  but  every  disease 
comes  from  him  too;  does  it  follow  that  we  are  prohibited  from 
calling  in  a  physician?  If  a  brigand  should  surprise  me  in  the 
recesses  of  a  wood,  am  I  bound  not  only  to  give  up  my  purse 
when  forced,  but  am  I  also  morally  bound  to  do  so  when  I  might 
conceal  it?  For,  in  effect,  the  pistol  which  he  holds  is  a  superior 
force. 

Let  us  agree,  then,  that  might  does  not  make  right,  and  that  \ 
we  are  bound  to  obey  none  but  lawful  authorities.     Thus  my 
original  question  ever  recurs. 


un. 
Sine 


kCh.  iv.    Slavery. 

Since  no  man  has  any  natural  authority  over  his  fellow-men,  and 
•since  force  is  not  the  source  of  right,  conventions  remain  as  the 
basis  of  all  lawful  authority  among  men.  J  | 

If  an  individual,  says  Grotius,  can  alienate  his  liberty  and 
become  the  slave  of  a  master,  why  should  not  a  whole  people  be 
able  to  alienate  theirs,  and  become  subject  to  a  king?  In  this 
there  are  many  equivocal  terms  requiring  explanation;  but  let  us 
confine  ourselves  to  the  word  alienate.  To  alienate  is  to  give  or 
sell.  Now,  a  man  who  becomes  another's  slave  does  not  give 
himself;  he  sells  himself  at  the  very  least  for  his  subsistence. 
But  why  does  a  nation  sell  itself?  So  far  from  a  king  supplying 
his  subjects  with  their  subsistence,  he  draws  his  from  them;  and, 
according  to  Rabelais,  a  king  does  not  live  on  a  little.  Do  sub- 
jects, then,  give  up  their  persons  on  condition  that  their  property 
also  shall  be  taken?  I  do  not  see  what  is  left  for  them  to  keep. 

It  will  be  said  that  the  despot  secures  to  his  subjects  civil 
peace.  Be  it  so;  but  what  do  they  gain  by  that,  if  the  wars 
which  his  ambition  brings  upon  them,  together  with  his  insatiable 
greed  and  the  vexations  of  his  administration,  harass  them  more 
than  their  own  dissensions  would?  What  do  they  gain  by  it  if 
this  tranquillity  is  itself  one  of  their  miseries?  Men  live  tranquilly 
also  in  dungeons;  is  that  enough  to  make  them  contented  there?- 
The  Greeks  confined  in  the  cave  of  the  Cyclops  lived  peacefully 
until  their  turn  came  to  be  devoured. 


n 


ROUSSEAU  483 


To  say  that  a  man  gives  himself  for  nothing  is  to  say  what 
is  absurd  and  inconceivable;  such  an  act  is  illegitimate  and 
invalid,  for  the  simple  reason  that  he  who  performs  it  is  not 
in  his  right  mind.  To  say  the  same  thing  of  the  whole  nation 
is  to  suppose  a  nation  of  fools;  and  madness  does  not.  confer 
rights. 

Even  if  each  person  could  alienate  himself,  he  could  not  alienate 
his  children;  they  are  born  free  men;  their  liberty  belongs  to  them, 
and  no  one  has  a  right  to  dispose  of  it  except  themselves.  Be- 
fore they  have  come  to  years  of  discretion,  the  father  can,  in 
their  name,  stipulate  conditions  for  their  preservation  and  wel- 
fare, but  not  surrender  them  irrevocably  and  unconditionally; 
for  such  a  gift  is  contrary  to  the  ends  of  nature,  and  exceeds  the 
rights  of  paternity.  In  order,  then,  that  an  arbitrary  govern- 
ment might  be  legitimate,  it  would  be  necessary  that  the  people 
in  each  generation  should  have  the  option  of  accepting  or  re- 
jecting it;  but  in  that  case  such  a  government  would  no  longer  be 
arbitrary.  Vy 

To  renounce  one's  liberty  is  to  renounce  one's  quality  as  a  man, 
the  rights  and  also  the  duties  of  humanity.  For  him  who  re- 
nounces everything  there  is  no  possible  compensation.  Such  a 
renunciation  is  incompatible  with  man's  nature,  for  to  take  away 
all  freedom  from  his  will  is  to  take  away  all  morality  from  his 
actions.  In  short,  a  convention  which  stipulates  absolute  au- 
thority on  the  one  side  and  unlimited  obedience  on  the  other 
is  vain  and  contradictory.  Is  it  not  clear  that  we  are  under  no 
obligations  whatsoever  towards  a  man  from  whom  we  have  a 
right  to  demand  everything?  And  does  not  this  single  condition, 
without  equivalent,  without  exchange,  involve  the  nullity  of  the 
act?  For  what  right  would  my  slave  have  against  me,  since  all 
that  he  has  belongs  to  me?  His  rights  being  mine,  this  right  of 
me  against  myself  is  a  meaningless  phrase. 

2.     The  Social  Contract  l 

Ch.  v.  That  it  is  Always  Necessary  to  go  Back  to  a  First  Con- 
vention. 

If  I  should  concede  all  that  I  have  so  far  refuted,  those  who 
favor  despotism  would  be  no  farther  advanced.  There  will 
always  be  a  great  difference  between  subduing  a  multitude  and 
ruling  a  society.  When  isolated  men,  however  numerous  they 
may  be,  are  subjected  one  after  another  to  a  single  person,  this 

1  Bk.  I,  chs.  v  and  vi. 


484  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

seems  to  me  only  a  case  of  master  and  slaves,  not  of  a  nation 
and  its  chief;  they  form,  if  you  will,  an  aggregation,  but  not  an 
association,  for  they  have  neither  public  property  nor  a  body 
politic.  Such  a  man,  had  he  enslaved  half  the  world,  is  never 
anything  but  an  individual;  his  interest,  separated  from  that  of 
the  rest,  is  never  anything  but  a  private  interest.  If  he  dies,  his 
empire  after  him  is  left  disconnected  and  disunited,  as  an  oak 
dissolves  and  becomes  a  heap  of  ashes  after  the  fire  has  consumed 
it. 

A  nation,  says  Grotius,  can  give  itself  to  a  king.  According 
to  Grotius,  then,  a  nation  is  a  nation  before  it  gives  itself  to  a 
king.  This  gift  itself  is  a  civil  act,  and  presupposes  a  public 
resolution.  Consequently,  before  examining  the  act  by  which  a 
nation  elects  a  king,  it  would  be  proper  to  examine  the  act  by 
which  a  nation  becomes  a  nation;  for  this  act,  being  necessarily 
anterior  to  the  other,  is  the  real  foundation  of  the  society. 

In  fact,  if  there  were  no  anterior  convention,  where,  unless  the 
election  were  unanimous,  would  be  the  obligation  upon  the 
minority  to  submit  to  the  decision  of  the  majority?  And  whence 
do  the  hundred  who  desire  a  master  derive  the  right  to  vote  on 
behalf  of  ten  who  do  not  desire  one?  The  law  of  the  plurality 
of  votes  is  itself  established  by  convention,  and  presupposes 
unanimity  once  at  least. 

Ch.  vi.     The  Social  Pact. 

I  assume  that  men  have  reached  a  point  at  which  the  obstacles 
that  endanger  their  preservation  in  the  state  of  nature  overcome 
by  their  resistance  the  forces  which  each  individual  can  exert 
with  a  view  to  maintaining  himself  in  that  state.  Then  this 
primitive  condition  can  no  longer  subsist,  and  the  human  race 
would  perish  unless  it  changed  its  mode  of  existence. 

Now,  as  men  cannot  create  any  new  forces,  but  only  combine 
and  direct  those  that  exist,  they  have  no  other  means  of  self- 
preservation  than  to  form  by  aggregation  a  sum  of  forces  which 
may  overcome  the  resistance,  to  put  them  in  action  by  a  single 
motive  power,  and  to  make  them  work  in  concert. 

This  sum  of  forces  can  be  produced  only  by  the  combination 
of  many;  but  the  strength  and  freedom  of  each  man  being  the 
chief  instruments  of  his  preservation,  how  can  he  pledge  them 
without  injuring  himself,  and  without  neglecting  the  cares  which 
he  owes  to  himself?  This  difficulty,  applied  to  my  subject,  may 
be  expressed  in  these  terms: — 

"To  find  a  form  of  association  which  may  defend  and  protect 


ROUSSEAU  485 

with  the  whole  force  of  the  community  the  person  and  property 
of  every  associate,  and  by  means  of  which  each,  coalescing  with 
all,  may  nevertheless  obey  only  himself,  and  remain  as  free  as 
before."  Such  is  the  fundamental  problem,  of  which  the  social 
contract  furnishes  the  solution.  ^^ 

The  clauses  of  this  contract  are  so  determined  by  the  nature 
of  the  act  that  the  slightest  modification  would  render  them  vain 
and  ineffectual;  so  that,  although  they  have  never  perhaps  been 
formally  enunciated,  they  are  everywhere  the  same,  everywhere 
tacitly  admitted  and  recognized,  until,  the  social  pact  being 
violated,  each  man  regains  his  original  rights  and  recovers  his 
natural  liberty,  while  losing  the  conventional  liberty  for  which 
he  renounced  it. 

These  clauses,  rightly  understood,  are  reducible  to  one  only, 
viz.  the  total  alienation  to  the  whole  community  of  each  associate 
with  all  his  rights;  for,  in  the  first  place,  since  each  gives  himself 
up  entirely,  the  conditions  are  equal  for  all;  and,  the  conditions 
being  equal  for  all,  no  one  has  any  interest  in  making  them  bur- 
densome to  others. 

Further,  the  alienation  being  made  without  reserve,  the  union 
is  as  perfect  as  it  can  be,  and  an  individual  associate  can  no 
longer  claim  anything;  for,  if  any  rights  were  left  to  individuals, 
since  there  would  be  no  common  superior  who  could  judge  be- 
tween them  and  the  public,  each,  being  on  some  point  his  own 
judge,  would  soon  claim  to  be  so  on  all;  the  state  of  nature  would 
still  subsist,  and  the  association  would  necessarily  become  tyran- 
nical or  useless. 

In  short,  each  giving  himself  to  all,  gives  himself  to  nobody; 
and  as  there  is  not  one  associate  over  whom  we  do  not  acquire 
the  same  rights  which  we  concede  to  him  over  ourselves,  we  gain 
the  equivalent  of  all  that  we  lose,  and  more  power  to  preserve 
what  we  have. 

If,  then,  we  set  aside  what  is  not  of  the  essence  of  the  social 
contract,  we  shall  find  that  it  is  reducible  to  the  following  terms: 
"Each  of  us  puts  in  common  his  person  and  his  whole  power 
under  the  supreme  direction  of  the  general  will;  and  in  return  / 
we  receive  every  member  as  an  indivisible  part  of  the  whole."      /  / 

Forthwith,  instead  of  the  individual  personalities  of  all  the 
contracting  parties,  this  act  of  the  association  produces  a  moral  and 
collective  body,  which  is  composed  of  as  many  members  as  the 
assembly  has  voices,  and  which  receives  from  this  same  act  its 
unity,  its  common  self  (moi),  its  life,  and  its  will.  This  public 
person,  which  is  thus  formed  by  the  union  of  all  the  individual 


'486  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

members,  formerly  took  the  name  of  city,  and  now  takes  that 
of  republic  or  body  politic,  which  is  called  by  its  members  state 
when  it  is  passive,  sovereign  when  it  is  active,  power  when  it  is 
compared  to  similar  bodies.  With  regard  to  the  associates,  they 
take  collectively  the  name  of  people,  and  are  called  individually 
citizens,  as  participating  in  the  sovereign  power,  and  subjects,  as 
subjected  to  the  laws  of  the  state.  But  these  terms  are  often 
confused  and  are  mistaken  one  for  another;  it  is  sufficient  to 
know  how  to  distinguish  them  when  they  are  used  with  complete 
precision. 

5.    Sovereignty  and  Law  l 

Ch.  vii.     The  Sovereign. 

We  see  from  this  formula  that  the  act  of  association  contains 

a  reciprocal  engagement  between  the  public  and  individuals,  and 

that  every  individual,  contracting  so  to  speak  with  himself,  is 

engaged  in  a  double  relation,  viz.  as  a  member  of  the  sovereign 

^towards  individuals,  and  as  a  merfiber  of  the  state  towards  the 

tgovereign.    But  we  cannot  apply  here  the  maxim  of  civil  law 

that  no  one  is  bound  by  engagements  made  with  himself;  for 

there  is  a  great  difference  between  being  bound  to  oneself  and  to 

a  whole  of  which  one  forms  part.   V\ 

We  must  further  observe  that  the  public  resolution  which  can 
bind  all  subjects  to  the  sovereign  in  consequence  of  the  two 
different  relations  under  which  each  of  them  is  regarded  cannot, 
for  a  contrary  reason,  bind  the  sovereign  to  itself;  and  that 
accordingly  it  is  contrary  to  the  nature  of  the  body  politic  for  the 
sovereign  to  impose  on  itself  a  law  which  it  cannot  transgress. 
As  it  can  only  be  considered  under  one  and  the  same  relation, 
it  is  in  the  position  of  an  individual  contracting  with  himself; 
whence  we  see  that  there  is  not,  nor  can  be,  any  kind  of  funda- 
mental law  binding  upon  the  body  of  the  people,  not  even  the 
social  contract.  This  does  not  imply  that  such  a  body  cannot 
perfectly  well  enter  into  engagements  with  others  in  what  does 
not  derogate  from  this  contract;  for,  with  regard  to  foreigners,  it 
becomes  a  simple  being,  an  individual. 

But  the  body  politic  or  sovereign,  deriving  its  existence  only 
from  the  sanctity  of  the  contract,  can  never  bind  itself,  even  to 
others,  in  anything  that  derogates  from  the  original  act,  such  as 
alienation  of  some  portion  of  itself,  or  submission  to  another 

1  Bk.  I,  ch.  vii;  Bk.  II,  chs.  i-iv,  vi. 


ROUSSEAU  487 

sovereign.  To  violate  the  act  by  which  it  exists  would  be  to 
annihilate  itself;  and  what  is  nothing  produces  nothing. 

So  soon  as  the  multitude  is  thus  united  in  one  body,  it  is  im- 
possible to  injure  one  of  the  members  without  attacking  the 
body,  still  less  to  injure  the  body  without  the  members  feeling  the 
effects.  Thus  duty  and  interest  alike  oblige  the  two  contracting 
parties  to  give  mutual  assistance;  and  the  men  themselves  should 
seek  to  combine  in  this  twofold  relationship  all  the  advantages 
which  are  attendant  on  it. 

Now,  the  sovereign,  being  formed  only  of  the  individuals  that 
compose  it,  neither  has  nor  can  have  any  interest  contrary  to 
theirs;  consequently  the  sovereign  power  needs  no  guarantee 
towards  its  subjects,  because  it  is  impossible  that  the  body  should 
wish  to  injure  all  its  members;  and  we  shall  see  hereafter  that  it 
can  injure  no  one  as  an  individual.  The  sovereign,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  it  is  so,  is  always  everything  that  it  ought  to  be. 

But  this  is  not  the  case  as  regards  the  relation  of  subjects  to 
the  sovereign,  which,  notwithstanding  the  common  interest,  would 
have  no  security  for  the  performance  of  their  engagements,  unless 
it  found  means  to  insure  their  fidelity, 

Indeed,  every  individual  may,  as  a  man,  have  a  particular  will 
contrary  to,  or  divergent  from,  the  general  will  which  he  has  as  a 
citizen;  his  private  interest  may  prompt  him  quite  differently 
from  the  common  interest;  his  absolute  and  naturally  inde- 
pendent existence  may  make  him  regard  what  he  owes  to  the 
common  cause  as  a  gratuitous  contribution,  the  loss  of  which  will 
be  less  harmful  to  others  than  the  payment  of  it  will  be  burden- 
some to  him;  and,  regarding  the  moral  person  that  constitutes 
the  state  as  an  imaginary  being  because  it  is  not  a  man,  he  would 
be  willing  to  enjoy  the  rights  of  a  citizen  without  being  willing  to 
fulfill  the  duties  of  a  subject.  The  progress  of  such  injustice 
would  bring  about  the  ruin  of  the  body  politic. 

In  order,  then,  that  the  social  pact  may  not  be  a  vain  formu- 
lary, it  tacitly  includes  this  engagement,  which  can  alone  give 
force  to  the  others, — that  whoever  refuses  to  obey  ihe  general 
will  shall  be  constrained  to  do  so  by  the  whole  body;  which 
means  nothing  else  than  that  he  shall  be  forced  to  be  free;  for 
such  is  the  condition  which,  uniting  every  citizen  to  his  native 
land,  guarantees  him  from  all  personal  dependence;  a  condition 
that  insures  the  control  and  working  of  the  political  machine, 
and  alone  renders  legitimate  civil  engagements,  which,  without 
it,  would  be  absurd  and  tyrannical,  and  subject  to  the  most 
enormous  abuses. 


488  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Book  II,  ch.  i.     That  Sovereignty  is  Inalienable. 

The  first  and  most  important  consequence  of  the  principles 
above  established  is  that  the  general  will  alone  can  direct  the  forces 
of  the  state  according  to  the  object  of  its  institution,  which  is  the 
common  good;  for  if  the  opposition  of  private  interests  has  rendered 
necessary  the  establishment  of  societies,  the  agreement  of  these 
same  interests  has  rendered  it  possible.  That  which  is  common 
to  these  different  interests  forms  the  social  bond;  and  unless  there 
were  some  point  in  which  all  interests  agree,  no  society  could 
exist.  Now,  it  is  solely  with  regard  to  this  common  interest  that 
the  society  should  be  governed. 

I  say,  then,  that  sovereignty,  being  nothing  but  the  exercise 
of  the  general  will,  can  never  be  alienated,  and  that  the, 
sovereign  power,  which  is  only  a  collective  being,  can  be  rep-, 
resented  by  itself  alone;  power  indeed  can  be  transmitted,  but, 
not  will. 

In  fact,  if  it  is  not  impossible  that  a  particular  will  should  agree 
on  some  point  with  the  general  will,  it  is  at  least  impossible  that 
this  agreement  should  be  lasting  and  constant;  for  the  particular 
will  naturally  tends  to  preferences,  and  the  general  will  to  equality. ) 
It  is  still  more  impossible  to  have  a  security  for  this  agreement; 
even  though  it  should  always  exist,  it  would  not  be  a  result  of 
art,  but  of  chance.  The  sovereign  may  indeed  say:  "I  will  now 
what  a  certain  man  wills,  or  at  least  what  he  says  that  he  wills;" 
but  he  cannot  say:  "What  that  man  wills  to-morrow,  I  shall  also 
will,"  since  it  is  absurd  that  the  will  should  bind  itself  as  regards 
the  future,  and  since  it  is  not  incumbent  on  any  will  to  consent 
to  anything  contrary  to  the  welfare  of  the  being  that  wills.  If, 
then,  the  nation  simply  promises  to  obey,  it  dissolves  itself  by  that 
act  and  loses  its  character  as  a  people;  the  moment  there  is  a) 
master,  there  is  no  longer  a  sovereign,  and  forthwith  the  body 
politic  is  destroyed. 

This  does  not  imply  that  the  orders  of  the  chiefs  cannot  pass 
for  decisions  of  the  general  will,  so  long  as  the  sovereign,  free  to 
oppose  them,  refrains  from  doing  so.     In  such  a  case  the  consent  \ 
of  the  people  should  be  inferred  from  the  universal  silence.     This 
will  be  explained  at  greater  length. 

Ch.  ii.     That  Sovereignty  is  Indivisible. 

For  the  same  reason  that  sovereignty  is  inalienable  it  is  in-* 
divisible;  for  the  will  is  either  general,  or  it  is  not;  it  is  either 
that  of  the  body  of  the  people,  or  that  of  only  a  portion.  In  the 
first  case,  this  declared  will  is  an  act  of  sovereignty  and  consti- 


ROUSSEAU  489 

tutes  law;  in  the  second  case,  it  is  only  a  particular  will,  or  an 
act  of  magistracy — it  is  at  most  a  decree. 

But  our  publicists,  being  unable  to  divide  sovereignty  in  its 
principle,  divide  it  in  its  object.  They  divide  it  into  force  and 
will,  into  legislative  power  and  executive  power;  into  rights  of 
taxation,  of  justice,  and  of  war;  into  internal  administration  and 
power  of  treating  with  foreigners — sometimes  confounding  all 
these  departments,  and  sometimes  separating  them.  They  make 
the  sovereign  a  fantastic  being,  formed  of  connected  parts;  it  is 
as  if  they  composed  a  man  of  several  bodies,  one  with  eyes, 
another  with  arms,  another  with  feet,  and  nothing  else.  The 
Japanese  conjurers,  it  is  said,  cut  up  a  child  before  the  eyes  of 
the  spectators;  then,  throwing  all  its  limbs  into  the  air,  they  make 
the  child  come  down  again  alive  and  whole.  Such  almost  are 
the  jugglers'  tricks  of  our  publicists;  after  dismembering  the 
social  body  by  a  deception  worthy  of  the  fair,  they  recombine  its 
parts,  nobody  knows  how. 

This  error  arises  from  their  not  having  formed  exact  notions 
about  the  sovereign  authority,  and  from  their  taking  as  parts  of 
this  authority  what  are  only  emanations  from  it.  Thus,  for  ex- 
ample, the  acts  of  declaring  war  and  making  peace  have  been 
regarded  as  acts  of  sovereignty,  which  is  not  the  case,  since 
neither  of  them  is  a  law,  but  only  an  application  of  the  law,  a 
particular  act  which  determines  the  case  of  the  law,  as  will  be 
clearly  seen  when  the  idea  attached  to  the  word  law  is  fixed. 

By  following  out  the  other  divisions  in  the  same  way,  it  would 
be  found  that,  whenever  the  sovereignty  appears  divided,  we  are 
mistaken  in  our  supposition;  and  that  the  rights  which  are  taken 
as  parts  of  that  sovereignty  are  all  subordinate  to  it,  and  always 
suppose  supreme  wills  of  which  these  rights  are  merely  executive. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  describe  the  great  obscurity  in  which 
this  want  of  precision  has  involved  the  conclusions  of  writers  on 
the  subject  of  political  right  when  they  have  endeavored  to 
decide  upon  the  respective  rights  of  kings  and  peoples  on  the 
principles  that  they  had  established.  Every  one  can  see,  in 
chapters  iii  and  iv  of  the  first  book  of  Grotius,  how  that  learned 
man  and  his  translator  Barbeyrac  become  entangled  and  em- 
barrassed in  their  sophisms,  for  fear  of  saying  too  much  or  not 
saying  enough  according  to  their  views,  and  so  offending  the 
interests  that  they  had  to  conciliate.  Grotius,  having  taken 
refuge  in  France  through  discontent  with  his  own  country,  and 
wishing  to  pay  court  to  Louis  XIII,  to  whom  his  book  is  dedi- 
cated, spares  no  pains  to  despoil  the  people  of  all  their  rights 


490  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

and,  in  the  most  artful  manner,  bestow  them  on  kings.  This 
also  would  clearly  have  been  the  inclination  of  Barbeyrac,  who 
dedicated  his  translation  to  the  king  of  England,  George  I.  But 
unfortunately  the  expulsion  of  James  II,  which  he  calls  an  abdi- 
cation, forced  him  to  be  reserved  and  to  equivocate  and  evade, 
in  order  not  to  make  William  appear  a  usurper.  If  these  two 
writers  had  adopted  true  principles,  all  difficulties  would  have 
been  removed,  and  they  would  have  been  always  consistent;  but 
they  would  have  spoken  the  truth  with  regret,  and  would  have 
paid  court  only  to  the  people.  Truth,  however,  does  not  lead  to 
fortune,  and  the  people  confer  neither  embassies,  nor  professor- 
ships, nor  pensions. 

i\    Ch.  iii.     Whether  the  General  Will  Can  Err. 

It  follows  from  what  precedes  that  the  general  will  is  always 
right  and  always  tends  to  the  public  advantage;  but  it  does  not 
follow~EHaTThe  resolutions  ~oT"the  people  have  always  the  same 
rectitude.  Men  always  desire  their  own  good,  but  do  not  always 
discern  it;  the  people  are  never  corrupted,  though  of  ten  xleceived, 
and  it  is  only  then  that  they  seem  to  will  what  is  evil.  ;  \T~ 

There  is  often  a  great  deal  of  difference  between  the  will  of  all 
and  the  general  will;  the  latter  regards  only  the  common  interest, 
while  the  former  has  regard  to  private  interests,  and  is  merely  a 
sum  of  particular  wills;  but  take  away  from  these  same  wills  the 
pluses  and  minuses  which  cancel  one  another,  and  the  general 

»    Iwill  remains  as  the  sum  of  the  differences, 

\  V  If  the  people  came  to  a  resolution  when  adequately  informed « 
and  without  any  communication  among  the  citizens;  the  general 
will  would  always  result  from  the  great  number  of  slight  differ- 
ences, and  the  resolution  would  always  be  goody-  But  when 
factions,  partial  associations,  are  formed  to  the  detriment  of  the 
whole  society,  the  will  of  each  of  these  associations  becomes 
general  with  reference  to  its  members,  and  particular  with  refer- 
ence to  the  state;  it  may  then  be  said  that  there  are  no  longer 
as  many  voters  as^  there  are  men,  but  only  as  many  voters  as  there ' 
are  associations\\  The  differences  become  less  numerous  and 
yield  a  less  general  result.  Lastly,  when  one  of  these  associations 
becomes  so  great  that  it  predominates  over  all  the  rest,  you  no 
longer  have  as  the  result  a  sum  of  small  differences,  but  a  single 
difference;  there  is  then  no  longer  a  general  will,  and  the  opinion 
which  prevails  is  only  a  particular  opinion. 

It  is  important,  then,  in  order  to  have  a  clear  declaration  of  the 
general  will,  that  there  should  be  no  partial  association  in  the 


\\ 


ROUSSEAU  491 

state,  and  that  every  citizen  should  express  only  his  own  opinion.  » 
Such  was  the  unique  and  sublime  institution  of  the  great  Lycurgus. 
But  if  there  are  partial  associations,  it  is  necessary  to  multiply 
their  number  and  prevent  inequality,  as  Solon,  Numa,  and  Servius 
did.  These  are  the  only  proper  precautions  for  insuring  that 
the  general  will  may  always  be  enlightened,  and  that  the  people 
may  not  be  deceived. 

Ch.  iv.     The  Limits  of  the  Sovereign  Power. 

If  the  state  or  city  is  nothing  but  a  moral  person,  the  life  of 
which  consists  in  the  union  of  its  members,  and  if  the  most  im- 
portant of  its  cares  is  that  of  self-preservation,  it  needs  a  universal 
and  compulsive  force  to  move  and  dispose  of  every  part  in  the 
manner  most  expedient  for  the  whole.  As  nature  gives  every 
man  an  absolute  power  over  all  his  limbs,  the  social  pact  gives  the 
body  politic  an  absolute  power  over  all  its  members;  and  it  is 
this  same  power  which,  when  directed  by  the  general  will,  bears, 
as  I  said,  the  name  of  sovereignty. 

But  besides  the  public  person,  we  have  to  consider  the  private 
persons  who  compose  it,  and  whose  life  and  liberty  are  naturally 
independent  of  it.  The  question,  then,  is  to  distinguish  clearly 
between  the  respective  rights  of  the  citizens  and  of  the  sovereign, 
as  well  as  between  the  duties  which  the  former  have  to  fulfill  in 
their  capacity  as  subjects  and  the  natural  rights  which  they  ought 
to  enjoy  in  their  character  as  men. 

It  is  admitted  that  whatever  part  of  his  power,  property,  and 
liberty  each  one  alienates  by  the  social  compact  is  only  that  part 
of  the  whole  of  which  the  use  is  important  to  the  community; 
but  we  must  also  admit  that  the  sovereign  alone  is  judge  of 
what  is  important. 

All  the  services  that  a  citizen  can  render  to  the  state  he  owes 
to  it  as  soon  as  the  sovereign  demands  them;  but  the  sovereign, 
on  its  part,  cannot  impose  on  its  subjects  any  burden  which  is 
useless  to  the  community;  it  cannot  even  wish  to  do  so,  for,  by 
the  law  of  reason,  just  as  by  the  law  of  nature,  nothing  is  done 
without  a  cause. 

The  engagements  which  bind  us  to  the  social  body  are  obliga- 
tory only  because  they  are  mutual;  and  their  nature  is  such  that 
in  fulfilling  them  we  cannot  work  for  others  without  also  working 
for  ourselves.  Why  is  the  general  will  always  right,  and  why  do 
all  invariably  desire  the  prosperity  of  each,  unless  it  is  because 
there  is  no  one  but  appropriates  to  himself  this  word  each  and 
thinks  of  himself  in  voting  on  behalf  of  all?  This  proves  that 


492  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

equality  of  rights  and  the  notion  of  justice  that  it  produces  are 
derived  from  the  preference  which  each  gives  to  himself,  and 
consequently  from  man's  nature;  that  the  general  will,  to  be  truly 
such,  should  be  so  in  its  object  as  well  as  in  its  essence;  that  it 
ought  to  proceed  from  all  in  order  to  be  applicable  to  all;  and 
that  it  loses  its  natural  rectitude  when  it  tends  to  some  individual 
and  determinate  object,  because  in  that  case,  judging  of  what  is 
unknown  to  us,  we  have  no  true  principle  of  equity  to  guide  us. 
Indeed  so  soon  as  a  particular  fact  or  right  is  in  question  with 
regard  to  a  point  which  has  not  been  regulated  by  an  anterior 
general  convention,  the  matter  becomes  contentious;  it  is  a 
process  in  which  the  private  persons  interested  are  one  of  the 
parties  and  the  public  the  other,  but  in  which  I  perceive  neither 
the  law  which  must  be  followed,  nor  the  judge  who  should  decide. 
It  would  be  ridiculous  in  such  a  case  to  wish  to  refer  the  matter 
for  an  express  decision  of  the  general  will,  which  can  be  nothing 
but  the  decision  of  one  of  the  parties,  and  which,  consequently,  is 
for  the  other  party  only  a  will  that  is  foreign,  partial,  and  inclined 
on  such  an  occasion  to  injustice  as  well  as  liable  to  error.  There- 
fore, just  as  a  particular  will  cannot  represent  the  general  will,  the 
general  will  in  turn  changes  its  nature  when  it  has  a  particular 
end,  and  cannot,  as  general,  decide  about  either  a  person  or  a 
fact.  When  the  people  of  Athens,  for  instance,  elected  or  de- 
posed their  chiefs,  decreed  honors  to  one,  imposed  penalties  on 
another,  and  by  multitudes  of  particular  decrees  exercised  indis- 
criminately all  the  functions  of  government,  the  people  n6  longer 
had  any  general  will  properly  so  called;  they  no  longer  acteci  as  a 
sovereign  power,  but  as  magistrates.  This  will  appear  contrary 
to  common  ideas,  but  I  must  be  allowed  time  to  expound  my 
own. 

From  this  we  must  understand  that  what  generalizes  the  will  is 
not  so  much  the  number  of  voices  as  the  common  interest  which 
unites  them;  for,  under  this  system,  each  necessarily  submits  to 
the  conditions  which  he  imposes  on  others — an  admirable  union 
of  interest  and  justice,  which  gives  to  the  deliberations  of  the 
community  a  spirit  of  equity  that  seems  to  disappear  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  any  private  affair,  for  want  of  a  common  interest  to 
unite  and  identify  the  ruling  principle  of  the  judge  with  that  of 
the  party. 

f     By  whatever  path  we  return  to  our  principle  we  always  arrive 
I   at  the  same  conclusion,  viz.  that  the  social  compact  establishes 
I   among  the  citizens  such  an  equality  that  they  all  pledge  them- 
selves under  the  same  conditions  and  ought  all  to  enjoy  the 


ROUSSEAU  493 

same  rights.  Thus,  by  the  nature  of  the  compact,  every  act  of 
sovereigntv^iat  is,  every  authentic  act  of  the  general  will,  binds 
or  favors  Equally  all  the  citizens;  so  that  the  sovereign  knows 
only  the  bodv  of  the  nation,  and  distinguishes  none  of  those  that 
compose  it.  \\ 

What,  then,  is  an  act  of  sovereignty  properly  so  called?  It  is 
not  an  agreement  between  a  superior  and  an  inferior,  but  an 
agreement  of  the  body  with  each  of  its  members^  a  lawful  agree- 
ment, because  it  has  the  social  contract  as  its  foundation;  equi- 
table, because  it  is  common  to  all;  useful,  because  it  can  have  no 
other  object  than  the  general  welfare;  and  stable,  because  it  has 
the  public  force  and  the  supreme  power  as  a  guarantee.  So  long 
as  the  subjects  submit  only  to  such  conventions,  they  obey  no 
one,  but  simply  their  own  will;  and  to  ask  how  far  the  respective 
rights  of  the  sovereign  and  citizens  extend  is  to  ask  up  to  what 
point  the  latter  can  make  engagements  among  themselves,  each 
with  all  and  all  with  each. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  sovereign  power,  wholly  absolute,  wholly 
sacred,  and  wholly  inviolable  as  it  is,  does  not,  and  cannot,  pass 
the  limits  of  general  conventions,  and  that  every  man  can  fully 
dispose  of  what  is  left  to  him  of  his  property  and  liberty  by  these 
conventionsfjKso  that  the  sovereign  never  has  a  right  to  burden 
one  subject  more  than  another,  because  then  the  matter  becomes 
particular  and  his  power  is  no  longer  competent.  \\ 

These  distinctions  once  admitted,  so  untrue  is  it  that  in  the 
social  contract  there  is  on  the  part  of  individuals  any  real  re- 
nunciation, that  their  situation,  as  a  result  of  this  contract,  is  in 
reality  preferable  to  what  it  was  before,  and  that,  instead  of  an 
alienation,  they  have  only  made  an  advantageous  exchange  of  an 
uncertain  and  precarious  mode  of  existence  for  a  better  and  more 
assured  one,  of  natural  independence  for  liberty,  of  the  power  to 
injure  others  for  their  own  safety,  and  of  their  strength,  which 
others  might  overcome,  for  a  right  which  the  social  union  renders 
inviolable.  Their  lives,  also,  which  they  have  devoted  to  the 
state,  are  continually  protected  by  it;  and  in  exposing  their  lives 
for  its  defense,  what  do  they  do  but  restore  what  they  have  re- 
ceived from  it?  What  do  they  do  but  what  they  would  do  more 
frequently  and  with  more  risk  in  the  state  of  nature,  when,  en- 
gaging in  inevitable  struggles,  they  would  defend  at  the  peril  of 
their  lives  their  means  of  preservation?  All  have  to  fight  for  their 
country  in  case  of  need,  it  is  true;  but  then  no  one  ever  has  to 
fight  for  himself.  Do  we  not  gain,  moreover,  by  incurring,  for 
what  insures  our  safety,  a  part  of  the  risks  that  we  should  have 


494  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

to  incur  for  ourselves  individually,  as  soon  as  we  were  deprived 
of  it? 

Ch.  vi.     The  Law. 

By  the  social  compact  we  have  given  existence  and  life  to  the 
body  politic;  the  question  now  is  to  endow  it  with  movement 
and  will  by  legislation.  For  the  original  act  by  which  this  body 
is  formed  and  consolidated  determines  nothing  in  addition  as  to 
what  it  must  do  for  its  own  preservation. 

What  is  right  and  conformable  to  order  is  such  by  the  nature 
of  things,  and  independently  of  human  conventions.  All  justice 
comes  from  God,  he  alone  is  the  source  of  it;  but  could  we  receive 
it  direct  from  so  lofty  a  source,  we  should  need  neither  govern- 
ment nor  laws.  Without  doubt  there  is  a  universal  justice 
emanating  from  reason  alone;  but  this  justice,  in  order  to  be 
admitted  among  us,  should  be  reciprocal.  Regarding  things 
from  a  human  standpoint,  the  laws  of  justice  are  inoperative 
among  men  for  want  of  a  natural  sanction;  they  only  bring  good 
to  the  wicked  and  evil  to  the  just  when  the  latter  observe  them 
with  every  one,  and  no  one  observes  them  in  return.  Con- 
ventions and  laws,  then,  are  necessary  to  couple  rights  with 
duties  and  apply  justice  to  its  object.  In  the  state  of  nature, 
where  everything  is  in  common,  I  owe  nothing  to  those  to  whom 
I  have  promised  nothing;  I  recognize  as  belonging  to  others 
only  what  is  useless  to  me.  This  is  not  the  case  in  the  civil 
state,  in  which  all  rights  are  determined  by  law. 

But  then,  finally,  what  is  a  law?  So  long  as  men  are  content 
to  attach  to  this  word  only  metaphysical  ideas,  they  will  continue 
to  argue  without  being  understood;  and  when  they  have  stated 
what  a  law  of  nature  is,  they  will  know  no  better  what  a  law  of 
the  state  is. 

I  have  already  said  that  there  is  no  general  will  with  reference 
to  a  particular  object.  In  fact,  this  particular  object  is  either  in 
the  state  or  outside  of  it.  If  it  is  outside  the  state,  a  will  which 
is  foreign  to  it  is  not  general  in  relation  to  it;  and  if  it  is  within 
the  state,  it  forms  part  of  it;  then  there  is  formed  between  the 
whole  and  its  part  a  relation  which  makes  of  it  two  separate 
beings,  of  which  the  part  is  one,  and  the  whole,  less  this  same 
part,  is  the  other.  But  the  whole  less  one  part  is  not  the  whole, 
and  so  long  as  the  relation  subsists,  there  is  no  longer  any  whole, 
but  two  unequal  parts;  whence  it  follows  that  the  will  of  the  one 
is  no  longer  general  in  relation  to  the  other. 

But  when  the  whole  people  decree  concerning  the  whole  people, 


ROUSSEAU  495 

they  consider  themselves  alone;  and  if  a  relation  is  then  consti- 
tuted, it  is  between  the  whole  object  under  one  point  of  view  and 
the  whole  object  under  another  point  of  view,  without  any  division 
at  all.  Then  the  matter  respecting  which  they  decree  is  general 
like  the  will  that  decrees.  It  is  this  act  that  I  call  a  law. 

When  I  say  that  the  object  of  the  laws  is  always  general,  I 
mean  that  the  law  considers  subjects  collectively,  and  actions  as 
abstract,  never  a  man  as  an  individual  nor  a  particular  action. 
Thus  the  law  may  indeed  decree  that  there  shall  be  privileges, 
but  cannot  confer  them  on  any  person  by  name;  the  law  can 
create  several  classes  of  citizens,  and  even  assign  the  qualifica- 
tions which  shall  entitle  them  to  rank  in  these  classes,  but  it 
cannot  nominate  such  and  such  persons  to  be  admitted  to  them; 
it  can  establish  a  royal  government  and  a  hereditary  succession, 
but  cannot  elect  a  king  or  appoint  a  royal  family;  in  a  word,  no 
function  which  has  reference  to  an  individual  object  appertains 
to  the  legislative  power. 

From  this  standpoint  we  see  immediately  that  it  is  no  longer    • 
necessary  to  ask  whose  office  it  is  to  make  laws,  since  they  are   / 
acts  of  the  general  will;  nor  whether  the  prince  is  above  the  / 
laws,  since  he  is  a  member  of  the  state;  nor  whether  the  law  can  , 
be  unjust,  since  no  one  is  unjust  to  himself;  nor  how  we  are  free  \ 
and  yet  subject  to  the  laws,  since  the  laws  are  only  registers  of 
our  wills. 

We  see,  further,  that  since  the  law  combines  the  universality 
of  the  will  with  the  universality  of  the  object,  whatever  any  man 
prescribes  on  his  own  authority  is  not  a  law;  and  whatever  the 
sovereign  itself  prescribes  respecting  a  particular  object  is  not  a 
law,  but  a  decree,  not  an  act  of  sovereignty,  but  of  magistracy. 

I  therefore  call  any  state  a  republic  which  is  governed  by  laws, 
under  whatever  form  of  administration  it  may  be;  for  then  only 
does  the  public  interest  predominate  and  the  commonwealth 
count  for  something.  Every  legitimate  government  is  republi- 
can; I  will  explain  hereafter  what  government  is. 

Laws  are  properly  only  the  conditions  of  civil  association. 
The  people,  being  subjected  to  the  laws,  should  be  the  authors 
of  them;  it  concerns  only  the  associates  to  determine  the  con- 
ditions of  association.  But  how  will  they  be  determined?  Will 
it  be  by  a  common  agreement,  by  a  sudden  inspiration?  Has 
a  body  politic  an  organ  for  expressing  its  will?  Who  will  give 
it  the  foresight  necessary  to  frame  its  acts  and  publish  them 
at  the  outset?  Or  shall  it  declare  them  in  the  hour  of  need? 
How  would  a  blind  multitude,  which  often  knows  not  what  it 


496  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

wishes  because  it  rarely  knows  what  is  good  for  it,  execute  of 
itself  an  enterprise  so  great,  so  difficult,  as  a  system  of  legisla- 
tion? Of  themselves,  the  people  always  desire  what  is  good,  but 
do  not  always  discern  it.  The  general  will  is  always  right,  but 
the  judgment  which  guides  it  is  not  always  enlightened.  It  must 
be  made  to  see  objects  as  they  are,  sometimes  as  they  ought  to 
appear;  it  must  be  shown  the  good  path  that  it  is  seeking,  and 
guarded  from  the  seduction  of  private  interests;  it  must  be  made 
to  observe  closely  times  and  places,  and  to  balance  the  attraction 
of  immediate  and  palpable  advantages  against  the  danger  of 
remote  and  concealed  evils.  Individuals  see  the  good  which 
they  reject;  the  public  desire  the  good  which  they  do  not  see. 
All  alike  have  need  of  guides.  The  former  must  be  compelled 
to  conform  their  wills  to  their  reason;  the  people  must  be  taught 
to  know  what  they  require.  Then  from  the  public  enlighten- 
ment results  the  union  of  the  understanding  and  the  will  in  the 
social  body;  and  from  that  the  close  cooperation  of  the  parts, 
and,  lastly,  the  maximum  power  of  the  whole.  Hence  arises  the 
need  of  a  legislator. 

4.     Government:  Its  Nature  and  Forms  l 

Before  speaking  of  the  different  forms  of  government,  let  us 
try  to  fix  the  precise  meaning  of  that  word,  which  has  not  yet 
been  very  clearly  explained. 

Ch.  i.     Government  in  General. 

I  warn  the  reader  that  this  chapter  must  be  read  carefully,  and 
that  I  do  not  know  the  art  of  making  myself  intelligible  to  those 
that  will  not  be  attentive. 

Every  free  action  has  two  causes  concurring  to  produce  it; 
the  one  moral,  viz.  the  will  which  determines  the  act;  the  other 
physical,  viz.  the  power  which  executes  it.  When  I  walk  towards 
an  object,  I  must  first  will  to  go  to  it;  in  the  second  place,  my 
feet  must  carry  me  to  it.  Should  a  paralytic  wish  to  run,  or  an 
active  man  not  wish  to  do  so,  both  will  remain  where  they  are. 
The  body  politic  has  the  same  motive  powers;  in  it,  likewise, 
force  and  will  are  distinguished,  the  latter  under  the  name  of 
legislative  power,  the  former  under  the  name  of  executive  power. 
Nothing  is,  or  ought  to  be,  done  in  it  without  their  cooperation. 

We  have  seen  that  the  legislative  power  belongs  to  the  people, 
and  can  belong  to  it  alone.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  easy  to 
see  from  the  principles  already  established,  that  the  executive 

1  Bk.  Ill,  chs.  i-iii. 


ROUSSEAU  497 

power  cannot  belong  to  the  people  generally  as  legislative  or 
sovereign,  because  that  power  is  exerted  only  in  particular  acts, 
which  are  not  within  the  province  of  the  law,  nor  consequently 
within  that  of  the  sovereign,  all  the  acts  of  which  must  be  laws. 

The  public  force,  then,  requires  a  suitable  agent  to  concentrate 
it  and  put  it  in  action  according  to  the  directions  of  the  general 
will,  to  serve  as  a  means  of  communication  between  the  state 
and  the  sovereign,  to  effect  in  some  manner  in  the  public  person 
what  the  union  of  soul  and  body  effects  in  a  man.  This  is,  in 
the  state,  the  function  of  the  government,  improperly  confounded 
with  the  sovereign  of  which  it  is  only  the  minister. 

What,  then,  is  the  government?  An  intermediate  body  es- 
tablished between  the  subjects  and  the  sovereign  for  their  mutual 
correspondence,  charged  with  the  execution  of  the  laws  and  with 
the  maintenance  of  liberty  both  civil  and  political. 

The  members  of  this  body  are  called  magistrates  or  kings,  that 
is,  governors;  and  the  body  as  a  whole  bears  the  name  of  Prince. 
Those  therefore  who  maintain  that  the  act  by  which  a  people 
submits  to  its  chiefs  is  not  a  contract  are  quite  right.  It  is 
absolutely  nothing  but  a  commission,  an  employment,  in  which, 
as  simple  officers  of  the  sovereign,  they  exercise  in  its  name  the 
power  of  which  it  has  made  them  depositaries,  and  which  it  can 
limit,  modify,  and  resume  when  it  pleases.  The  alienation  of 
such  a  right,  being  incompatible  with  the  nature  of  the  social  body, 
is  contrary  to  the  object  of  the  association. 

Consequently,  I  give  the  name  government  or  supreme  adminis- 
tration to  the  legitimate  exercise  of  the  executive  power,  and  that 
of  Prince  or  magistrate  to  the  man  or  body  charged  with  that 
administration. 

It  is  in  the  government  that  are  found  the  intermediate  powers, 
the  relations  of  which  constitute  the  relation  of  the  whole  to  the 
whole,  or  of  the  sovereign  to  the  state.  This  last  relation  can  be 
represented  by  that  of  the  extremes  of  a  continued  proportion,  of 
which  the  mean  proportional  is  the  government.  The  govern- 
ment receives  from  the  sovereign  the  commands  which  it  gives  to 
the  people;  and  in  order  that  the  state  may  be  in  stable  equilibrium, 
it  is  necessary,  everything  being  balanced,  that  there  should  be 
equality  between  the  product  or  the  power  of  the  government 
taken  by  itself,  and  the  product  or  the  power  of  the  citizens,  who 
are  sovereign  in  the  one  aspect  and  subjects  in  the  other. 

Further,  we  could  not  alter  any  of  the  three  terms  without  at 
once  destroying  the  proportion.  If  the  sovereign  wishes  to 
govern,  or  if  the  magistrate  wishes  to  legislate,  or  if  the  subjects 


498  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

refuse  to  obey,  disorder  succeeds  order,  force  and  will  no  longer 
act  in  concert,  and  the  state  being  dissolved  falls  into  despotism 
or  anarchy.  Lastly,  as  there  is  but  one  mean  proportional  be- 
tween each  relation,  there  is  only  one  good  government  possible 
in  a  state;  but  as  a  thousand  events  may  change  the  relations  of 
a  people,  not  only  may  different  governments  be  good  for  differ- 
ent peoples,  but  for  the  same  people  at  different  times.  . 

To  try  and  give  an  idea  of  the  different  relations  that  may 
exist  between  these  two  extremes,  I  will  take  for  an  example  the 
number  of  people,  as  a  relation  most  easy  to  express. 

Let  us  suppose  that  the  state  is  composed  of  ten  thousand 
citizens.  The  sovereign  can  only  be  considered  collectively  and 
as  a  body;  but  every  private  person,  in  his  capacity  of  subject,  is 
considered  as  an  individual;  therefore  the  sovereign  is  to  be  the 
subject  as  ten  thousand  is  to  one,  that  is,  each  member  of  the 
state  has  as  his  share  only  one  ten-thousandth  part  of  the  sovereign 
authority,  although  he  is  entirely  subjected  to  it. 

If  the  nation  consists  of  a  hundred  thousand  men,  the  position 
of  the  subjects  does  not  change,  and  each  alike  is  subjected  to 
the  whole  authority  of  the  laws,  while  his  vote,  reduced  to  one 
hundred-thousandth,  has  ten  times  less  influence  in  their  enact- 
ment. The  subject,  then,  always  remaining  a  unit,  the  propor- 
tional power  of  the  sovereign  increases  in  the  ratio  of  the  number 
of  the  citizens.  Whence  it  follows  that  the  more  the  state  is 
enlarged,  the  more  does  liberty  diminish. 

When  I  say  that  the  proportional  power  increases,  I  mean  that 
it  is  farther  removed  from  equality.  Therefore,  the  greater  the 
ratio  is  in  the  geometrical  sense,  the  less  is  the  ratio  in  the  common 
acceptation;  in  the  former,  the  ratio,  considered  according  to 
quantity,  is  measured  by  the  exponent,  and  in  the  other,  con- 
sidered according  to  identity,  it  is  estimated  by  the  similarity. 

Now,  the  less  the  particular  wills  correspond  with  the  general 
will,  that  is,  customs  with  laws,  the  more  should  the  repressive 
power  be  increased.  The  government,  then,  in  order  to  be 
effective,  should  be  relatively  stronger  in  proportion  as  the  people 
are  more  numerous. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  the  aggrandizement  of  the  state  gives 
the  depositaries  of  the  public  authority  more  temptations  and 
more  opportunities  to  abuse  their  power,  the  more  force  should 
the  government  have  to  restrain  the  people,  .and  the  more  should 
the  sovereign  have  in  its  turn  to  restrain  the  government.  I  do 
not  speak  here  of  absolute  force,  but  of  the  relative  force  of  the 
different  parts  of  the  state. 


ROUSSEAU  499 

It  follows  from  this  double  ratio  that  the  continued  proportion 
between  the  sovereign,  the  Prince,  and  the  people  is  not  an  arbi- 
trary idea,  but  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  nature  of  the  body 
politic.  It  follows,  further,  that  one  of  the  extremes,  viz.  the 
people,  as  subject,  being  fixed  and  represented  by  unity,  when- 
ever the  double  ratio  increases  or  diminishes,  the  single  ratio 
increases  or  diminishes  in  like  manner,  and  consequently  the  middle 
term  is  changed.  This  shows  that  there  is  no  unique  and  absolute 
constitution  of  government,  but  that  there  may  be  as  many  govern- 
ments different  in  nature  as  there  are  states  different  in  size. 

If,  for  the  sake  of  turning  this  system  to  ridicule,  it  should  be 
said  that,  in  order  to  find  this  mean  proportional  and  form  the 
body  of  the  government,  it  is,  according  to  me,  only  necessary  to 
take  a  square  root  of  the  number  of  the  people,  I  should  answer 
that  I  take  that  number  here  only  as  an  example;  that  the  ratios 
of  which  I  speak  are  not  measured  only  by  the  number  of  men, 
but  in  general  by  the  quantity  of  action,  which  results  from  the 
combination  of  multitudes  of  causes;  that,  moreover,  if  for  the 
purpose  of  expressing  myself  in  fewer  words,  I  borrow  for  a 
moment  geometrical  terms,  I  am  nevertheless  aware  that  geo- 
metrical precision  has  no  place  in  moral  quantities. 

The  government  is  on  a  small  scale  what  the  body  politic 
which  includes  it  is  on  a  large  scale.  It  is  a  moral  person  en- 
dowed with  certain  faculties,  active  like  the  sovereign,  passive  like 
the  state,  and  it  can  be  resolved  into  other  similar  relations;  from 
which  arises  as  a  consequence  a  new  proportion,  and  yet  another 
within  this,  according  to  the  order  of  the  magistracies,  until  we 
come  to  an  indivisible  middle  term,  that  is,  to  a  single  chief  or 
supreme  magistrate,  who  may  be  represented,  in  the  middle  of 
this  progression,  as  unity  between  the  series  of  fractions  and  that 
of  the  whole  numbers. 

Without  embarrassing  ourselves  with  this  multiplication  of 
terms,  let  us  be  content  to  consider  the  government  as  a  new 
body  in  the  state,  distinct  from  the  people  and  from  the  sovereign, 
and  intermediate  between  the  two. 

There  is  this  essential  difference  between  those  two  bodies,  that 
the  state  exists  by  itself,  while  the  government  exists  only  through 
the  sovereign.  Thus  the  dominant  will  of  the  Prince  is,  or  ought 
to  be,  only  the  general  will,  or  the  law;  its  force  is  only  the  public 
force  concentrated  in  itself;  so  soon  as  it  wishes  to  perform  of 
itself  some  absolute  and  independent  act  the  connection  of  the 
whole  begins  to  be  relaxed.  If,  lastly,  the  Prince  should  chance 
to  have  a  particular  will  more  active  than  that  of  the  sovereign, 


500  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

and  if,  to  enforce  obedience  to  this  particular  will,  it  should  em- 
ploy the  public  force  which  is  in  its  hands,  in  such  a  manner  that 
there  would  be  so  to  speak  two  sovereigns,  the  one  de  jure  and 
the  other  de  facto,  the  social  union  would  immediately  disappear, 
and  the  body  politic  would  be  dissolved. 

Further,  in  order  that  the  body  of  the  government  may  have  an 
existence,  a  real  life,  to  distinguish  it  from  the  body  of  the  state; 
in  order  that  all  its  members  may  be  able  to  act  in  concert  and 
fulfill  the  object  for  which  it  is  instituted,  a  particular  personality 
is  necessary  to  it,  a  feeling  common  to  its  members,  a  force,  a 
will  of  its  own  tending  to  its  preservation.  This  individual  exist- 
ence supposes  assemblies,  councils,  a  power  of  deliberating  and 
resolving,  rights,  titles,  and  privileges  which  belong  to  the  Prince 
exclusively,  and  which  render  the  position  of  the  magistrate  more 
honorable  in  proportion  as  it  is  more  arduous.  The  difficulty 
lies  in  the  method  of  disposing,  within  the  whole,  this  subordinate 
whole,  in  such  a  way  that  it  may  not  weaken  the  general  constitu- 
tion in  strengthening  its  own;  that  its  particular  force,  intended 
for  its  own  preservation,  may  always  be  kept  distinct  from  the 
public  force,  designed  for  the  preservation  of  the  state;  and,  in  a 
word,  that  it  may  always  be  ready  to  sacrifice  the  government  to 
the  people,  and  not  the  people  to  the  government. 

Moreover,  although  the  artificial  body  of  the  government  is  the 
work  of  another  artificial  body,  and  has  in  some  respects  only  a 
derivative  and  subordinate  existence,  that  does  not  prevent  it 
from  acting  with  more  or  less  vigor  or  celerity,  from  enjoying,  so 
to  speak,  more  or  less  robust  health.  Lastly,  without  directly 
departing  from  the  object  for  which  it  was  instituted,  it  may 
deviate  from  it  more  or  less,  according  to  the  manner  in  which  it 
is  constituted. 

From  all  these  differences  arise  the  different  relations  which 
the  government  must  have  with  the  body  of  the  state,  so  as  to 
accord  with  the  accidental  and  particular  relations  by  which  the 
state  itself  is  modified.  For  often  the  government  that  is  best  in 
itself  will  become  the  most  vicious,  unless  its  relations  are  changed 
so  as  to  meet  the  defects  of  the  body  politic  to  which  it  belongs. 

Ch.  ii.  The  Principle  which  Constitutes  the  Different  Forms  of 
Government. 

To  explain  the  general  cause  of  these  differences,  I  must  here 
distinguish  the  Prince  from  the  government,  as  I  before  distin- 
guished the  state  from  the  sovereign. 

The  body  of  the  magistracy  may  be  composed  of  a  greater  or 


ROUSSEAU  501 

less  number  of  members.  We  said  that  the  ratio  of  the  sovereign 
to  the  subjects  was  so  much  greater  as  the  people  were  more 
numerous;  and,  by  an  evident  analogy,  we  can  say  the  same  of 
the  government  with  regard  to  the  magistrates.  i 

Now,  the  total  force  of  the  government,  being  always  that  of  the 
state,  does  not  vary;  whence  it  follows  that  the  more  it  employs 
this  force  on  its  own  members,  the  less  remains  for  operating 
upon  the  whole  people. 

Consequently,  the  more  numerous  the  magistrates  are,  the 
weaker  is  the  government.  As  this  maxim  is  fundamental,  let  us 
endeavor  to  explain  it  more  clearly. 

We  can  distinguish  in  the  person  of  the  magistrate  three  wills 
essentially  different:  first,  the  will  peculiar  to  the  individual, 
which  tends  only  to  his  personal  advantage;  secondly,  the  com- 
mon will  of  the  magistrates,  which  has  reference  solely  to  the 
advantage  of  the  Prince,  and  which  may  be  called  the  corporate 
will,  being  general  in  relation  to  the  government,  and  particular 
in  relation  to  the  state  of  which  the  government  forms  part;  in 
the  third  place,  the  will  of  the  people,  or  the  sovereign  will,  which 
is  general  both  in  relation  to  the  state  considered  as  the  whole, 
and  in  relation  to  the  government  considered  as  part  of  the 
whole. 

In  a  perfect  system  of  legislation  the  particular  or  individual 
will  should  be  inoperative;  the  corporate  will  proper  to  the 
government  quite  subordinate;  and  consequently  the  general 
or  sovereign  will  always  dominant,  and  the  sole  rule  of  all  the 
rest. 

On  the  other  hand,  according  to  the  natural  order,  these  differ- 
ent wills  become  more  active  in  proportion  as  they  are  concen- 
trated. Thus  the  general  will  is  always  the  weakest,  the  cor- 
porate will  has  the  second  rank,  and  the  particular  will  the  first 
of  all;  so  that  in  the  government  each  member  is,  first,  himself, 
next  a  magistrate,  and  then  a  citizen — a  gradation  directly 
opposed  to  that  which  the  social  order  requires. 

But  suppose  that  the  whole  government  is  in  the  hands  of  a 
single  man,  then  the  particular  will  and  the  corporate  will  are 
perfectly  united,  and  consequently  the  latter  is  in  the  highest 
possible  degree  of  intensity.  Now,  as  it  is  on  the  degree  of  will 
that  the  exertion  of  force  depends,  and  as  the  absolute  power  of 
the  government  does  not  vary,  it  follows  that  the  most  active 
government  is  that  of  a  single  person. 

On  the  other  hand,  let  us  unite  the  government  with  the  legis- 
lative authority;  let  us  make  the  sovereign  the  Prince,  and  all 


502  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  citizens  magistrates;  then  the  corporate  will,  confounded 
with  the  general  will,  will  have  no  more  activity  than  the  latter, 
and  will  leave  the  particular  will  in  all  its  force.  Thus  the  govern- 
ment, always  with  the  same  absolute  force,  will  be  at  its  minimum 
of  relative  force  or  activity. 

These  relations  are  incontestable,  and  other  considerations 
serve  still  further  to  confirm  them.  We  see,  for  example,  that 
each  magistrate  is  more  active  in  his  body  than  each  citizen  is 
in  his,  and  that  consequently  the  particular  will  has  much  more 
influence  in  the  acts  of  government  than  in  those  of  the  sovereign; 
for  every  magistrate  is  almost  always  charged  with  some  function 
of  government,  whereas  each  citizen,  taken  by  himself,  has  no 
function  of  sovereignty.  Besides,  the  more  a  state  extends, 
the  more  is  its  real  force  increased,  although  it  does  not  increase 
in  proportion  to  its  extent;,  but,  while  the  state  remains  the 
same,  it  is  useless  to  multiply  magistrates,  for  the  government 
acquires  no  greater  real  force,  inasmuch  as  this  force  is  that  of  the 
state,  the  quantity  of  which  is  always  uniform.  Thus  the  relative 
force  or  activity  of  the  government  diminishes  without  its  absolute 
or  real  force  being  able  to  increase. 

It  is  certain,  moreover,  that  the  dispatch  of  business  is  re- 
tarded in  proportion  as  more  people  are  charged  with  it;  that, 
in  laying  too  much  stress  on  prudence,  we  leave  too  little  to 
fortune;  that  opportunities  are  allowed  to  pass  by,  and  that 
owing  to  excessive  deliberation  the  fruits  of  deliberation  are 
often  lost. 

I  have  just  shown  that  the  government  is  weakened  in  pro- 
portion to  the  multiplication  of  magistrates,  and  I  have  before 
demonstrated  that  the  more  numerous  the  people  is,  the  more 
ought  the  repressive  force  to  be  increased.  Whence  it  follows 
that  the  ratio  between  the  magistrates  and  the  government  ought 
to  be  inversely  as  the  ratio  between  the  subjects  and  the  sovereign; 
that  is,  the  more  the  state  is  enlarged,  the  more  should  the  gov- 
ernment contract;  so  that  the  number  of  chiefs  should  diminish 
in  proportion  as  the  number  of  the  people  is  increased. 

But  I  speak  here  only  of  the  relative  force  of  the  government, 
and  not  of  its  rectitude;  for,  on  the  other  hand,  the  more  numer- 
ous the  magistracy  is,  the  more  does  the  corporate  will  approach 
the  general  will;  whereas,  under  a  single  magistrate,  this  same 
corporate  will  is,  as  I  have  said,  only  a  particular  will.  Thus, 
what  is  lost  on  one  side  can  be  gained  on  the  other,  and  the  art 
of  the  legislator  consists  in  knowing  how  to  fix  the  point  where 
the  force  and  will  of  the  government,  always  in  reciprocal  pro- 


ROUSSEAU  503 

portion,  are  combined  in  the  ratio  most  advantageous  to  the 
state. 

Ch.  iii.     Classification  of  Governments. 

We  have  seen  in  the  previous  chapter  why  the  different  kinds 
or  forms  of  government  are  distinguished  by  the  number  of 
members  that  compose  them;  it  remains  to  be  seen  in  the  present 
chapter  how  this  division  is  made. 

/  /  The  sovereign  may,  in  the  first  place,   commit  the  charge 
'of  the  government  to  the  whole  people,  or  to  the  greater  part 
of  the  people,  in  such  a  way  that  there  may  be  more  citizens, 
who  are  magistrates  than  simple  individual  citizens.    We  call 
this  form  of  government  a  democracy.    \ 

Or  it  may  confine  the  government  to  a  small  number,  so  that 
there  may  be  more  ordinary  citizens  than  magistrates;  and  this 
form  bears  the  name  of  aristocracy. 

Lastly,  it  may  concentrate  the  whole  government  in  the  hands 
of  a  single  magistrate  from  whom  all  the  rest  derive  their  power. 
This  third  form  is  the  most  common,  and  is  called  monarchy,  or 
royal  government. 

We  should  remark  that  all  these  forms,  or  at  least  the  first 
two,  admit  of  degrees,  and  may  indeed  have  a  considerable 
range;  for  democracy  may  embrace  the  whole  people,  or  be 
limited  to  a  half.  Aristocracy,  in  its  turn,  may  restrict  itself 
from  a  half  of  the  people  to  the  smallest  number  indeterminately. 
Royalty  even  is  susceptible  of  some  division.  Sparta  by  its 
constitution  always  had  two  kings;  and  in  the  Roman  Empire 
there  were  as  many  as  eight  Emperors  at  once  without  its  being 
possible  to  say  that  the  Empire  was  divided.  Thus  there  is  a 
point  at  which  each  form  of  government  blends  with  the  next; 
and  we  see  that,  under  three  denominations  only,  the  government 
is  really  susceptible  of  as  many  different  forms  as  the  state  has 
citizens. 

What  is  more,  this  same  government  being  in  certain  respects 
capable  of  subdivision  into  other  parts,  one  administered  in  one 
way,  another  in  another,  there  may  result  from  combinations 
of  these  three  forms  a  multitude  of  mixed  forms,  each  of  which 
can  be  multiplied  by  all  the  simple  forms. 

In  all  ages  there  has  been  much  discussion  about  the  best 
form  of  government,  without  consideration  of  the  fact  that  each 
of  them  is  the  best  in  certain  cases,  and  the  worst  in  others. 

If,  in  the  different  states,  the  number  of  the  supreme  magis- 
trates should  be  in  inverse  ratio  to  that  of  the  citizens,  it  follows 


504  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

that,  in  general,  democratic  government  is  suitable  to  small 
states,  aristocracy  to  those  of  moderate  size,  and  monarchy  to 
large  ones.  This  rule  follows  immediately  from  the  principle. 
But  how  is  it  possible  to  estimate  the  multitude  of  circumstances 
which  may  furnish  exceptions? 

5.     The  Subordination  of  Government  to  Sovereign  l 

Ch.  xii.     How  the  Sovereign  Authority  is  Maintained. 

The  sovereign,  having  no  other  force  than  the  legislative  power, 
acts  only  through  the  laws;  and  the  laws  being  nothing  but 
authentic  acts  of  the  general  will,  the  sovereign  can  act  only  when 
the  people  are  assembled.  The  people  assembled,  it  will  be  said; 
what  a  chimera!  It  is  a  chimera  to-day;  but  it  was  not  so  two 
thousand  years  ago.  Have  men  changed  their  nature? 

The  limits  of  the  possible  in  moral  things  are  less  narrow  than 
we  think;  it  is  our  weaknesses,  our  vices,  our  prejudices,  that  con- 
tract them.  Sordid  souls  do  not  believe  in  great  men;  vile  slaves 
smile  with  a  mocking  air  at  the  word  liberty. 

From  what  has  been  done  let  us  consider  what  can  be  done. 
I  shall  not  speak  of  the  ancient  republics  of  Greece;  but  the 
Roman  Republic  was,  it  seems  to  me,  a  great  state,  and  the  city 
of  Rome  a  great  city.  The  last  census  in  Rome  showed  that 
there  were  400,000  citizens  bearing  arms,  and  the  last  enumeration 
of  the  Empire  showed  more  than  4,000,000  citizens,  without 
reckoning  subjects,  foreigners,  women,  children,  and  slaves. 

What  a  difficulty,  we  might  suppose,  there  would  be  in  assem- 
bling frequently  the  enormous  population  of  the  capital  and  its 
environs.  Yet  few  weeks  passed  without  the  Roman  people  being 
assembled,  even  several  times.  Not  only  did  they  exercise  the 
rights  of  sovereignty,  but  a  part  of  the  functions  of  government. 
They  discussed  certain  affairs  and  judged  certain  causes,  and  in 
the  public  assembly  the  whole  people  were  almost  as  often  magis- 
trates as  citizens. 

By  going  back  to  the  early  times  of  nations,  we  should  find  that 
the  majority  of  the  ancient  governments,  even  monarchical  ones, 
like  those  of  the  Macedonians  and  the  Franks,  had  similar  councils. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  this. single  incontestable  fact  solves  all  diffi- 
culties; inference  from  the  actual  to  the  possible  appears  to  me 
sound.  "\^ 
\  I  Ch.  xiii.  uow  the  Sovereign  Authority  is  Maintained  (Continued). 

It  is  not  sufficient  that  the  assembled  people  should  have  once 
fixed  the  constitution  of  the  state  by  giving  their  sanction  to  a 

1  Bk.  Ill,  chs.  xii-xviiL 


ROUSSEAU  505 

body  of  laws;  it  is  not  sufficient  that  they  should  have  established 
a  perpetual  government,  or  that  they  should  have  once  for  all 
provided  for  the  election  of  magistrates.  Besides  the  extraor- 
dinary assemblies  which  unforeseen  events  may  require,  it  is 
necessary  that  there  should  be  fixed  and  periodical  ones  which 
nothing  can  abolish  or  prorogue;  so  that,  on  the  appointed  day, 
the  people  are  rightfully  convoked  by  the  law,  without  needing 
for  that  purpose  any  formal  summons.  \\ 

But,  excepting  these  assemblies  which  are  lawful  by  their  date 
alone,  every  assembly  of  the  people  that  has  not  been  convoked 
by  the  magistrates  appointed  for  that  duty  and  according  to  the 
prescribed  forms,  ought  to  be  regarded  as  unlawful  and  all  that  is 
done  in  it  as  invalid,  because  even  the  order  to  assemble  ought  to 
emanate  from  the  law. 

As  for  the  more  or  less  frequent  meetings  of  the  lawful  assem- 
blies, they  depend  on  so  many  considerations  that  no  precise 
rules  can  be  given  about  them.  Only  it  may  be  said  generally 
that  the  more  force  a  government  has,  the  more  frequently  should 
the  sovereign  display  itself. 

This,  I  shall  be  told,  may  be  good  for  a  single  city;  but  what 
is  to  be  done  when  the  state  comprises  many  cities?  Will  the 
sovereign  authority  be  divided?  Or  must  it  be  concentrated  in  a 
single  city  and  render  subject  all  the  rest? 

I  answer  that  neither  alternative  is  necessary.  In  the  first  place, 
the  sovereign  authority  is  simple  and  undivided,  and  we  cannot 
divide  it  without  destroying  it.  In  the  second  place,  a  city,  no 
more  than  a  nation,  can  be  lawfully  subject  to  another,  because 
the  essence  of  the  body  politic  consists  in  the  union  of  obedience 
and  liberty,  and  these  words,  subject  and  sovereign,  are  correlatives, 
the  notion  underlying  them  being  expressed  in  the  one  word 
citizen. 

I  answer,  further,  that  it  is  always  an  evil  to  combine  several 
towns  into  a  single  state,  and,  in  desiring  to  effect  such  a  union, 
we  must  not  flatter  ourselves  that  we  shall  avoid  the  natural 
inconveniences  of  it.  The  abuses  of  great  states  cannot  be 
brought  as  an  objection  against  a  man  who  only  desires  small 
ones.  But  how  can  small  states  be  endowed  with  sufficient 
force  to  resist  great  ones?  Just  in  the  same  way  as  when  the 
Greek  towns  of  old  resisted  the  Great  King,1  and  as  more  recently 
Holland  and  Switzerland  have  resisted  the  House  of  Austria, 
Y  If,  however,  the  state  cannot  be  reduced  to  proper  limits,  one 
/resource  still  remains;  it  is  not  to  allow  any  capital,  but  to  make 

lThe  Persian  king. 


506  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  government  sit  alternately  in  each  town,  and  also  to  assemble 
in  them  by  turns  the  estates  of  the  country. 

People  the  territory  uniformly,  extend  the  same  rights  every- 
where, spread  everywhere  abundance  and  life;  in  this  way  the 
state  will  become  at  once  the  strongest  and  the  best  governed 
that  may  be  possible.  Remember  that  the  walls  of  the  towns  are 
formed  solely  of  the  remains  of  houses  in  the  country.  For  every 
palace  that  I  see  rising  in  the  capital,  I  seem  to  see  a  whole  rural 
district  laid  in  ruins. 

Ch.  xiv.     How  the  Sovereign  Authority  is  Maintained  (Continued) . 

So  soon  as  the  people  are  lawfully  assembled  as  a  sovereign 
body,  the  whole  jurisdiction  of  the  government  ceases,  the  execu- 
tive power  is  suspended,  and  the  person  of  the  meanest  citizen  is 
as  sacred  and  inviolable  as  that  of  the  first  magistrate,  because 
where  the  represented  are,  there  is  no  longer  any  representative. 
Most  of  the  tumults  that  arose  in  Rome  in  the  comitia  proceeded 
from  ignorance  or  neglect  of  this  rule.  The  consuls  were  then 
only  presidents  of  the  people  and  the  tribunes  simple  orators; 
the  senate  had  no  power  at  all. 

These  intervals  of  suspension,  in  which  the  Prince  recognizes  or 
ought  to  recognize  the  presence  of  a  superior,  have  always  been 
dreaded  by  that  power;  and  these  assemblies  of  the  people,  which 
are  the  shield  of  the  body  politic  and  the  curb  of  the  government, 
have  in  all  ages  been  the  terror  of  the  chief  men;  hence  such 
men  are  never  wanting  in  solicitude,  objections,  obstacles,  and 
promises,  in  the  endeavor  to  make  the  citizens  disgusted  with  the 
assemblies.  When  the  latter  are  avaricious,  cowardly,  pusillani- 
mous, and  more  desirous  of  repose  than  of  freedom,  they  do  not 
long  hold  out  against  the  repeated  efforts  of  the  government ;  and 
thus,  as  the  resisting  force  constantly  increases,  the  sovereign 
authority  at  last  disappears,  and  most  of  the  states  decay  and 
perish  before  their  time. 

But  between  the  sovereign  authority  and  the  arbitrary  govern- 
ment there  is  sometimes  introduced  an  intermediate  power  of 
which  I  must  speak. 

Ch.  xv.     Deputies  or  Representatives. 

If  So  soon  as  the  service  of  the  state  ceases  to  be  the  principal 
business  of  the  citizens,  and  they  prefer  to  render  aid  with  their 
purses  rather  than  their  persons,  the  state  is  already  on  the  brink 
of  ruin.  Is  it  necessary  to  march  to  battle,  they  pay  troops  and 
remain  at  home;  is  it  necessary  to  go  to  the  council,  they  elect 
deputies  and  remain  at  home.  As  a  result  of  indolence  and 


ROUSSEAU  507 

wealth,  they  at  length  have  soldiers  to  enslave  their  country  and 
representatives  to  sell  it.    V\ 

It  is  the  bustle  of  commerce  and  of  the  arts,  it  is  the  greedy 
pursuit  of  gain,  it  is  effeminacy  and  love  of  comforts,  that  com- 
mute personal  services  for  money.  Men  sacrifice  a  portion  of 
their  profit  in  order  to  increase  it  at  their  ease.  Give  money 
and  soon  you  will  have  chains.  That  word  finance  is  a  slaves' 
word;  it  is  unknown  among  citizens.  In  a  country  that  is  really 
free,  the  citizens  do  everything  with  their  hands  and  nothing  with 
money;  far  from  paying  for  exemption  from  their  duties,  they 
would  pay  to  perform  them  themselves.  I  am  far  removed 
from  ordinary  ideas;  I  believe  that  statute-labor  (les  corses)  is 
less  repugnant  to  liberty  than  taxation  is. 

//The  better  constituted  a  state  is,  the  more  do  public  affairs 
outweigh  private  ones  in  the  minds  of  the  citizens.  There  is, 
indeed,  a  much  smaller  number  of  private  affairs,  because  the 
amount  of  the  general  prosperity  furnishes  a  more  considerable 
portion  to  that  of  each  individual,  and  less  remains  to  be  sought 
by  individual  exertions.  In  a  well-conducted  city-state  every  one . 
hastens  to  the  assemblies;  while  under  a  bad  government  no 
one  cares  to  move  a  step  in  order  to  attend  them,  because  no  one 
takes  an  interest  in  the  proceedings,  since  it  is  foreseen  that  the 
general  will  will  not  prevail;  and  so  at  last  private  concerns 
become  all-absorbing.  Good  laws  pave  the  way  for  better  ones; 
bad  laws  lead  to  worse  ones.  As  soon  as  any  one  says  of  the 
affairs  of  the  state,  "Of  what  importance  are  they  to  me?"  we 
must  consider  that  the  state  is  lost.  \  \ 

The  decline  of  patriotism,  the  active  pursuit  of  private  interests, 
the  vast  size  of  states,  conquests,  and  the  abuses  of  government, 
have  suggested  the  plan  of  deputies  or  representatives  of  the 
people  in  the  assemblies  of  the  nation.  It  is  this  which  in  certain 
countries  they  dare  to  call  the  third  estate.  Thus  the  private 
interest  of  two  orders  is  put  in  the  first  and  second  rank,  the 
public  interest  only  in  the  third. 

//Sovereignty  cannot  be  represented  for  the  same  reason  that  it 
'cannot  be  alienated;  it  consists  essentially  in  the  general  will, 
and  the  will  cannot  be  represented;  it  is  the  same  or  it  is  differ- 
ent; there  is  no  medium.  The  deputies  of  the  people,  then, 
are  not  and  cannot  be  its  representatives;  they  are  only  its  com- 
missioners and  can  conclude  nothing  definitely.  Every  law 
which  the  people  in  person  have  not  ratified  is  invalid;  it  is  not 
a  law.  The  English  nation  thinks  that  it  is  free,  but  is  greatly 
mistaken,  for  it  is  so  only  during  the  election  of  members  of 


508  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Parliament;  as  soon  as  they  are  elected,  it  is  enslaved  and  counts 
for  nothing.  The  use  which  it  makes  of  the  brief  moments  of 
freedom  renders  the  loss  of  liberty  well  deserved.  |^ 

The  idea  of  representatives  is  modern;  it  comes  to  us  from 
feudal  government,  that  absurd  and  iniquitous  government, 
under  which  mankind  is  degraded  and  the  name  of  man  dis- 
honored. In  the  republics,  and  even  in  the  monarchies,  of 
antiquity,  the  people  never  had  representatives;  they  did  not 
know  the  word.  It  is  very  singular  that  in  Rome,  where  the 
tribunes  were  so  sacred,  it  was  not  even  imagined  that  they  could 
usurp  the  functions  of  the  people,  and  in  the  midst  of  so  great 
a  multitude,  they  never  attempted  to  pass  of  their  own  accord  a 
single  plebiscituml'\WQ  maY  judge,  however,  of  the  embarrass- 
ment which  the  crowd  sometimes  caused  from  what  occurred  in 
the  time  of  the  Gracchi,  when  a  part  of  the  citizens  gave  their 
votes  on  the  house-tops.  But  where  right  and  liberty  are  all  in 
all,  inconveniences  are  nothing.  In  that  wise  nation  everything 
was  estimated  at  a  true  value;  it  allowed  the  lictors  to  do  what 
the  tribunes  had  not  dared  to  do,  and  was  not  afraid  that  the 
lictors  would  want  to  represent  it. 

To  explain,  however,  in  what  manner  the  tribunes  sometimes 
represented  it,  it  is  sufficient  to  understand  how  the  government 
represents  the  sovereign/  ;  The  law  being  nothing  but  the  dec- 
laration of  the  general -'will,  it  is  clear  that  in  their  legislative 
capacity  the  people  cannot  be  represented;  but  they  can  and 
should  be  represented  in  the  executive  power,  which  is  only 
force  applied  to  law.  This  shows  that  very  few  nations  would, 
upon  careful  examination,  be  found  to  have  laws.  Be  that  as 
it  may,  it  is  certain  that  the  tribunes,  having  no  share  in  the 
executive  power,  could  never  represent  the  Roman  people  by 
right  of  their  office,  but  only  by  encroaching  on  the  rights  of  the 
senate. 

//Among  the  Greeks,  whatever  the  people  had  to  do,  they  did 
themselves;  they  were  constantly  assembled  in  the  public  place. 
They  lived  in  a  mild  climate  and  they  were  not  avaricious;  slaves 
performed  the  manual  labor;  the  people's  great  business  was 
liberty. \\  Not  having  the  same  advantages,  how  are  you  to  pre- 
serve the  same  rights?  Your  more  rigorous  climates  give  you 
more  wants;  for  six  months  in  a  year  the  public  place  is  untenable, 
and  your  hoarse  voices  cannot  be  heard  in  the  open  air.  You  care 
more  for  gain  than  for  liberty,  and  you  fear  slavery  far  less  than 
you  do  misery. 

What!  is  liberty  maintained  only  with  the  help  of  slavery? 


ROUSSEAU  509 

Perhaps;  extremes  meet.  Everything  which  is  not  according 
to  nature  has  its  inconveniences,  and  civil  society  more  than  all 
the  rest.  There  are  circumstances  so  unfortunate  that  people 
can  preserve  their  freedom  only  at  the  expense  of  that  of  others, 
and  the  citizen  cannot  be  completely  free  except  when  the  slave 
is  enslaved  to  the  utmost.  Such  was  the  position  of  Sparta.  As 
for  you,  modern  nations,  you  have  no  slaves,  but  you  are  slaves; 
you  pay  for  their  freedom  with  your  own.  In  vain  do  you  boast 
of  this  preference;  I  find  in  it  more  of  cowardice  than  of  humanity. 

I  do  not  mean  by  all  this  that  slaves  are  necessary  and  that 
the  right  of  slavery  is  lawful,  since  I  have  proved  the  contrary; 
I  only  mention  the  reasons  why  modern  nations  who  believe 
themselves  free  have  representatives,  and  why  ancient  nations 
had  none.  Be  that  as  it  may,  as  soon  as  a  nation  appoints 
representatives,  it  is  no  longer  free;  it  no  longer  exists. 
/  /  After  very  careful  consideration  I  do  not  see  that  it  is  possible 
Henceforward  for  the  sovereign  to  preserve  among  us  the  exer- 
cise of  its  rights  unless  the  state  is  very  small.  But  if  it  is 
small,  will  it  not  be  subjugated?  No;  I  shall  show  hereafter 
how  the  external  power  of  a  great  nation  can  be  combined  with 
the  convenient  polity  and  good  order  of  a  small  state,  ll  £)l 

f 

Ch.  xvi.     That  the  Institution  of  the  Government  is  not  a  Contract. 

The  legislative  power  being  once  well  established,  the  question 
is  to  establish  also  the  executive  power;  for  this  latter,  which 
operates  only  by  particular  acts,  not  being  of  the  essence  of  the 
other,  is  naturally  separated  from  it.  If  it  were  possible  that 
the  sovereign,  considered  as  such,  should  have  the  executive 
power,  law  and  fact  would  be  so  confounded  that  it  could  no 
longer  be  known  what  is  law  and  what  is  not;  and  the  body 
politic,  thus  perverted,  would  soon  become  a  prey  to  the  violence 
against  which  it  was  instituted. 

The  citizens  being  all  equal  by  the  social  contract,  all  can 
prescribe  what  all  ought  to  do,  while  no  one  has  a  right  to  de- 
mand that  another  should  do  what  he  will  not  do  himself.  Now, 
it  is  properly  this  right,  indispensable  to  make  the  body  politic 
live  and  move,  which  the  sovereign  gives  to  the  Prince  in  establish- 
ing the  government. 

Several  have  pretended  that  the  instrument  in  this  establish- 
ment is  a  contract  between  the  people  and  the  chiefs  whom 
they  set  over  themselves — a  contract  by  which  it  is  stipulated  be- 
tween the  two  parties  on  what  conditions  the  one  binds  itself 
to  rule,  the  other  to  obey.  It  will  be  agreed,  I  am  sure,  that  this 


510  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

is  a  strange  method  of  contracting.  But  let  us  see  whether  such 
a  position  is  tenable. 

First,  the  supreme  authority  can  no  more  be  modified  than 
alienated;  to  limit  it  is  to  destroy  it.  It  is  absurd  and  contra- 
dictory that  the  sovereign  should  acknowledge  a  superior;  to  bind 
itself  to  obey  a  master  is  to  regain  full  liberty. 

Further,  it  is  evident  that  this  contract  of  the  people  with  such 
or  such  persons  is  a  particular  act;  whence  it  follows  that  the 
contract  cannot  be  a  law  nor  an  act  of  sovereignty,  and  that  con- 
sequently it  is  unlawful. 

Moreover,  we  see  that  the  contracting  parties  themselves  would 
be  under  the  law  of  nature  alone,  and  without  any  security  for 
the  performance  of  their  reciprocal  engagements,  which  is  in 
every  way  repugnant  to  the  civil  state.  He  who  possesses  the 
power  being  always  capable  of  executing  it,  we  might  as  well 
give  the  name  contract  to  the  act  of  a  man  who  should  say  to 
another:  "I  give  you  all  my  property,  on  condition  that  you 
restore  me  what  you  please." 

There  is  but  one  contract  in  the  state — that  of  association; 
and  this  of  itself  excludes  any  other.  No  public  contract  can 
be  conceived  which  would  not  be  a  violation  of  the  first. 

Ch.  xvii.     The  Institution  of  the  Government. 

Under  what  general  notion,  then,  must  be  included  the  act  by 
which  the  government  is  instituted?  I  shall  observe  first  that 
this  act  is  complex,  or  composed  of  two  others,  viz.  the  establish- 
ment of  the  law  and  the  execution  of  the  law. 

By  the  first,  the  sovereign  determines  that  there  shall  be  a 
governing  body  established  in  such  or  such  a  form;  and  it  is 
clear  that  this  act  is  a  law. 

By  the  second,  the  people  nominate  the  chiefs  who  will  be 
intrusted  with  the  government  when  established.  Now,  this 
nomination  being  a  particular  act,  is  not  a  second  law,  but  only 
a  consequence  of  the  first,  and  a  function  of  the  government. 

The  difficulty  is  to  understand  how  there  can  be  an  act  of 
government  before  the  government  exists,  and  how  the  people, 
who  are  only  sovereign  or  subjects,  can,  in  certain  circumstances, 
become  the  Prince  or  the  magistrates. 

Here,  however,  is  disclosed  one  of  those  astonishing  properties 
of  the  body  politic,  by  which  it  reconciles  operations  apparently 
contradictory;  for  this  is  effected  by  a  sudden  conversion  of 
sovereignty  into  democracy  in  such  a  manner  that,  without  any 
perceptible  change,  and  merely  by  a  new  relation  of  all  to  all, 


ROUSSEAU  511 

the  citizens,  having  become  magistrates,  pass  from  general  acts 
to  particular  acts,  and  from  the  law  to  the  execution  of  it. 

This  change  of  relation  is  not  a  subtlety  of  speculation  without 
example  in  practice;  it  occurs  every  day  in  the  Parliament  of 
England,  in  which  the  Lower  House  on  certain  occasions  resolves 
itself  into  Grand  Committee  in  order  to  discuss  business  better, 
and  thus  becomes  a  simple  commission  instead  of  the  sovereign 
court  that  it  was  the  moment  before.  In  this  way  it  afterwards 
reports  to  itself,  as  the  House  of  Commons,  what  it  has  just 
decided  in  Grand  Committee. 

Such  is  the  advantage  peculiar  to  a  democratic  government,  that 
it  can  be  established  in  fact  by  a  simple  act  of  the  general  will; 
and  after  this,  the  provisional  government  remains  in  power,  should 
that  be  the  form  adopted,  or  establishes  in  the  name  of  the  sov- 
ereign the  government  prescribed  by  the  law;  and  thus  everything 
is  according  to  rule.  It  is  impossible  to  institute  the  government 
in  any  other  way  that  is  legitimate  without  renouncing  the  prin- 
ciples heretofore  established. 

Ch.  xviii.     Means  of  Preventing  Usurpations  of  the  Government. 

From  these  explanations  it  follows,  in  confirmation  of  chapter 
xvi,  that  the  act  which  institutes  the  government  is  not  a 
contract,  but  a  law;  that  the  depositaries  of  the  executive  power 
are  not  the  masters  of  the  people,  but  its  officers;  that  the  people 
can  appoint  them  and  dismiss  them  at  pleasure;  that  for  them 
it  is  not  a  question  of  contracting,  but  of  obeying;  and  that  in 
undertaking  the  functions  which  the  state  imposes  on  them, 
they  simply  fulfill  their  duty  as  citizens,  without  having  in  any 
way  a  right  to  discuss  the  conditions. 

When,  therefore,  it  happens  that  the  people  institute  a  heredi- 
tary government,  whether  monarchical  in  a  family  or  aristocratic 
in  one  order  of  citizens,  it  is  not  an  engagement  that  they  make, 
but  a  provisional  form  which  they  give  to  the  administration,  until 
they  please  to  regulate  it  differently. 

It  is  true  that  such  changes  are  always  dangerous,  and  that  the 
established  government  must  never  be  touched  except  when  it 
becomes  incompatible  with  the  public  good;  but  this  circum- 
spection is  a  maxim  of  policy,  not  a  rule  of  right;  and  the  state 
is  no  more  bound  to  leave  the  civil  authority  to  its  chief  men  than 
the  military  authority  to  its  generals. 

Moreover,  it  is  true  that  in  such  a  case  all  the  formalities 
requisite  to  distinguish  a  regular  and  lawful  act  from  a  seditious 
tumult,  and  the  will  of  a  whole  people  from  the  clamors  of  a 


512  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

faction,  cannot  be  too  carefully  observed.  It  is  especially  in  this 
case  that  only  such  concessions  should  be  made  as  cannot  in 
strict  justice  be  refused;  and  from  this  obligation  also  the  Prince 
derives  a  great  advantage  in  preserving  its  power  in  spite  of  the 
people,  without  their  being  able  to  say  that  it  has  usurped  the 
power;  for  while  appearing  to  exercise  nothing  but  its  rights,  it 
may  very  easily  extend  them,  and,  under  pretext  of  maintaining 
the  public  peace,  obstruct  the  assemblies  designed  to  reestablish 
good  order;  so  that  it  takes  advantage  of  a  silence  which  it  pre- 
vents from  being  broken,  or  of  irregularities  which  it  causes  to  be 
committed,  so  as  to  assume  in  its  favor  the  approbation  of  those 
whom  fear  renders  silent  and  punish  those  that  dare  to  speak. 
It  is  in  this  way  that  the  Decemvirs,  having  at  first  been  elected 
for  one  year,  and  then  kept  in  office  for  another  year,  attempted 
to  retain  their  power  in  perpetuity  by  no  longer  permitting  the 
comitia  to  assemble;  and  it  is  by  this  easy  method  that  all  the 
governments  in  the  world,  when  once  invested  with  the  public 
force,  usurp  sooner  or  later  the  sovereign  authority. 

The  periodical  assemblies  of  which  I  have  spoken  before  are 
fitted  to  prevent  or  postpone  this  evil,  especially  when  they  need 
no  formal  convocation;  for  then  the  Prince  cannot  interfere  with 
them,  without  openly  proclaiming  itself  a  violator  of  the  laws  and 
an  enemy  of  the  state. 

These  assemblies,  which  have  as  their  object  the  maintenance 
of  the  social  treaty,  ought  always  to  be  opened  with  two  proposi- 
tions, which  no  one  should  be  able  to  suppress,  and  which  should 
pass  separately  by  vote. 

The  first:  " Whether  it  pleases  the  sovereign  to  maintain  the 
present  form  of  government." 

The  second:  " Whether  it  pleases  the  people  to  leave  the  ad- 
ministration to  those  at  present  intrusted  with  it." 

I  presuppose  here  what  I  believe  that  I  have  proved,  viz.  that 
there  is  in  the  state  no  fundamental  law  which  cannot  be  revoked, 
not  even  the  social  compact;  for  if  all  the  citizens  assembled  in 
order  to  break  this  compact  by  a  solemn  agreement,  no  one  can 
doubt  that  it  would  be  quite  legitimately  broken.  Grotius  even 
thinks  that  each  man  can  renounce  the  state  of  which  he  is  a 
member,  and  regain  his  natural  freedom  and  his  property  by 
quitting  the  country.  Now  it  would  be  absurd  if  all  the  citizens 
combined  should  be  unable  to  do  what  each  of  them  can  do 
separately. 


ROUSSEAU  513 

SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life  and  Times: 

Morley,  Rousseau,  2  vols. 

Saint-Marc-Girardin,  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  sa  vie  el  ses  ouvrages.    2  tomes. 
Franck,   Reformateurs  et  publicistes  de  I'Europe,   dix-huitieme  siecle,   pp. 
285-300. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Dunning,  "Rousseau's  Political  Theories,"  in  Political  Science  Quarterly, 

Vol.  XXIV  (1909),  pp.  377-408. 
Pollock,  History  of  the  Science  of  Politics,  pp.  79-84. 
Tozer,  "Introduction  "  in  Rousseau's  Social  Contract. 
Franck,  Reformateurs  et  publicistes  de  I'Europe,  dix-huitieme  siecle,  pp.  301- 

379- 

Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  II,  pp.  415-477. 
Bluntschli,  Geschichle  der  Staatstheorien,  pp.  334-362. 
Rpdet,  Le  Conlrat  social  et  les  idees  politiques  de  J.  J.  Rousseau. 
Ritchie,  "Contributions  to  the  History  of  the  Social  Contract  Theory,"  in 

Political  Science  Quarterly,  Vol.  VI  (1891),  pp.  656-676. 
Champion,  /.  /.  Rousseau  et  la  revolution  fran$aise. 
Faguet,  La  Politique  comparee  de  Montesquieu,  Rousseau  et  Voltaire. 


PAINE 


XIX.    THOMAS  PAINE  (1737-1809) 

INTRODUCTION 

The  opposition  of  the  American  colonists  to  the  policies  of 
the  British  government  in  the  eighteenth  century  brought  forth 
little  in  the  way  of  original  or  constructive  statement  of  abstract 
political  theory.  However,  the  controversies  upon  the  eve  of  the 
Revolution  were  the  occasion  for  Common  Sense,  the  first  impor- 
tant work  of  the  Anglo-American  political  writer — Thomas  Paine. 
In  a  later  work — The  Rights  of  Man,  Paine  gave  a  more  absolute 
and  intense  expression  to  the  doctrine  of  popular  and  limited  gov- 
ernment than  has  ever  been  given  by  any  English  writer. 

Paine  was  born  in  a  town  of  Norfolk  county,  England,  in  1737, 
the  son  of  a  Quaker  stay-maker.  He  received  no  academic  train- 
ing beyond  the  grammar  school,  which  he  left  in  his  fourteenth 
year.  During  the  following  twenty-five  years  he  pursued  several 
occupations  with  no  great  success  at  any  one.  After  spending  a 
few  years  at  sea  he  followed  his  father's  vocation  at  London  and 
other  places;  and  twice  he  held  an  appointment  as  collector  of  ex- 
cise taxes,  having  to  relinquish  each  time  this  latter  office  because 
of  the  careless  execution  of  his  work.  In  London  he  attended 
scientific  lectures;  and  in  a  small  town  in  which  he  lived  for  a  while 
he  took  part  in  the  debates  of  a  local  Whig  club.  He  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Benjamin  Franklin  in  London,  and  when  he  came 
to  America  in  1774  he  brought  with  him  a  letter  of  introduction 
from  Franklin. 

Paine  remained  in  America  for  thirteen  years  and  took  active 
part  in  political  life  here.  He  assisted  in  the  editorship  of  the 
"Pennsylvania  Magazine,"1  and  wrote  in  defense  of  woman's 
rights,  in  opposition  to  slavery,  and  in  advocacy  of  war  against 
England.  In  1776  he  published  the  pamphlet  entitled  Common 
Sense.  In  this  he  urged  separation  from  England  and  the  insti- 
tution of  a  republican  government ;  he  demonstrated  the  superior- 
ity of  republican  to  hereditary  government  from  the  standpoints 
of  both  justice  and  utility,  basing  his  argument  upon  an  examina- 
tion of  the  origin  and  purpose  of  civil  government  in  general. 

1  Founded  in  1775. 

517 


518  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

This  work  as  well  as  other  pamphlets  written  along  the  same  line 
at  irregular  intervals  during  the  next  few  years  under  the  title  of 
"  The  Crisis,"  met  with  extreme  popularity;  and  they  were 
undoubtedly  influential  in  stimulating  and  confirming  the  political 
passions  of  the  colonists.  During  the  war  and  the  early  years 
of  the  Confederation  he  served  on  several  diplomatic  missions  and 
in  other  public  positions. 

Returning  to  England  in  1787,  Paine  became  involved  there  in 
the  controversy  between  radicals  and  conservatives,  and  wrote 
a  pamphlet  attacking  Pitt's  war  plans  against  France.  In  lyfl  he 
published  the  first  part  of  the  Rights  of  Man;  this  was  written  as  a 
reply  to  Burke's  Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France,  which  had 
appeared  shortly  before.  The  government  endeavored  to  suppress 
the  Rights  of  Man;  and  Paine  was  indicted  for  treason,  and  was 
subsequently  tried  and  convicted  in  his  absence.  Meanwhile  he 
had  departed  to  France,  where  he  took  part  in  the  Constitutional 
Convention  of  1793.  He  suffered  a  brief  period  of  imprisonment 
after  the  fall  of  the  Girondists,  having  incurred  the  hostility  of 
the  Jacobins  by  reason  of  his  opposition  to  their  excessive  policies. 
After  the  fall  of  Robespierre  he  was  freed,  through  the  intervention 
of  Monroe,  Minister  from  the  United  States,  and  he  resumed  work 
in  the  Convention.  While  in  prison  he  completed  his  Age  of 
Reason,  which  is  an  exposition  of  deism  and  comprises  a  vigorous 
criticism  of  the  orthodox  and  ceremonial  form  of  Christianity. 

Paine  returned  to  the  United  States  in  1802,  where  he  spent  the 
last  five  years  of  his  life.  His  popularity  among  the  American 
people  had  greatly  declined  by  reason  of  a  letter,  written  some 
years  before,  in  which  he  strongly  disparaged  Washington's  record 
as  a  military  leader  and  his  policies  as  president.  Paine 's  un- 
orthodox religious  views  had  also  affected  unfavorably  his  repu- 
tation here. 

READINGS  FROM  COMMON  SENSE  AND  THE  RIGHTS  OF  MAN » 

1.     The  Rights  of  Man  * 

The  error  of  those  who  reason  by  precedents  drawn  from  an- 
tiquity, respecting  the  rights  of  man,  is  that  they  do  not  go 

1  The  selections  are  taken  from  The  Writings  of  Thomas  Paine,  collected 
and  edited  by  Moncure  Daniel  Con  way;  four  volumes;  New  York,  1894-5. 
By  courtesy  of  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

2  The  Rights  of  Man  (Conway,  Vol.  II),  pp.  303-307. 


PAINE  519 

far  enough  into  antiquity.  They  do  not  go  the  whole  way. 
They  stop  in  some  of  the  intermediate  stages  of  an  hundred  or  a 
thousand  years,  and  produce  what  was  then  done,  as  a  rule  for  the 
present  day.  This  is  no  authority  at  all.  If  we  travel  still 
farther  into  antiquity,  we  shall  find  a  direct  contrary  opinion 
and  practice  prevailing;  and  if  antiquity  is  to  be  authority,  a 
thousand  such  authorities  may  be  produced,  successively  contra- 
dicting each  other;  but  if  we  proceed  on,  we  shall  at  last  come  out 
right;  we  shall  come  to  the  time  when  man  came  from  the  hand 
of  his  Maker.  What  was  he  then?  Man.  Man  was  his  high 
and  only  title,  and  a  higher  cannot  be  given  him.  But  of  titles 
I  shall  speak  hereafter. 

We  are  now  got  at  the  origin  of  man,  and  at  the  origin  of 
his  rights.  As  to  the  manner  in  which  the  world  has  been  gov- 
erned from  that  day  to  this,  it  is  no  further  any  concern  of  ours 
than  to  make  a  proper  use  of  the  errors  or  the  improvements 
which  the  history  of  it  presents.  Those  who  lived  an  hundred  or 
a  thousand  years  ago,  were  then  moderns,  as  we  are  now.  They 
had  their  ancients,  and  those  ancients  had  others,  and  we  also 
shall  be  ancients  in  our  turn.  If  the  mere  name  of  antiquity 
is  to  govern  in  the  affairs  of  life,  the  people  who  are  to  live  an 
hundred  or  a  thousand  years  hence,  may  as  well  take  us  for  a 
precedent,  as  we  make  a  precedent  of  those  who  lived  an  hundred 
or  a  thousand  years  ago.  The  fact  is,  that  portions  of  antiquity, 
by  proving  everything,  establish  nothing.  It  is  authority  against 
authority  all  the  way,  till  we  come  to  the  divine  origin  of  the 
rights  of  man  at  the  creation.  Here  our  inquiries  find  a  resting- 
place,  and  our  reason  finds  a  home.  If  a  dispute  about  the  rights 
of  man  had  arisen  at  the  distance  of  an  hundred  years  from  the 
creation,  it  is  to  this  source  of  authority  they  must  have  referred, 
and  it  is  to  this  same  source  of  authority  that  we  must  now  refer. 

Though  I  mean  not  to  touch  upon  any  sectarian  principle  of 
religion,  yet  it  may  be  worth  observing,  that  the  genealogy  of 
Christ  is  traced  to  Adam.  Why  then  not  trace  the  rights  of  man 
to  the  creation  of  man?  I  will  answer  the  question.  Because 
there  have  been  upstart  governments,  thrusting  themselves 
between,  and  presumptuously  working  to  un-make  man. 

If  any  generation  of  men  ever  possessed  the  right  of  dictating 
the  mode  by  which  the  world  should  be  governed  forever,  it  was 
the  first  generation  that  existed;  and  if  that  generation  did  it  not, 
no  succeeding  generation  can  show  any  authority  for  doing  it, 
nor  can  set  any  up.  The  illuminating  and  divine  principle  of 
the  equal  rights  of  man  (for  it  has  its  origin  from  the  Maker  of 


520  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

man)  relates,  not  only  to  the  living  individuals,  but  to  generations 
of  men  succeeding  each  other.  Every  generation  is  equal  in 
rights  to  generations  which  preceded  it,  by  the  same  rule  that 
every  individual  is  born  equal  in  rights  with  his  contemporary. 

Every  history  of  the  creation,  and  every  traditionary  account, 
whether  from  the  lettered  or  unlettered  world,  however  they 
may  vary  in  their  opinion  or  belief  of  certain  particulars,  all 
agree  in  establishing  one  point,  the  unity  of  man;  by  which  I  mean 
that  men  are  all  of  one  degree,  and  consequently  that  all  men  are 
born  equal,  and  with  equal  natural  right,  in  the  same  manner  as 
if  posterity  had  been  continued  by  creation  instead  of  generation, 
the  latter  being  the  only  mode  by  which  the  former  is  carried  for- 
ward; and  consequently  every  child  born  into  the  world  must  be 
considered  as  deriving  its  existence  from  God.  The  world  is  as 
new  to  him  as  it  was  to  the  first  man  that  existed,  and  his  natural 
right  in  it  is  of  the  same  kind. 

The  Mosaic  account  of  the  creation,  whether  taken  as  divine 
authority  or  merely  historical,  is  full  to  this  point,  the  unity 
or  equality  of  man.  The  expression  admits  of  no  controversy. 
"And  God  said,  Let  us  make  man  in  our  own  image.  In  the 
image  of  God  created  he  him;  male  and  female  created  he  them." 
The  distinction  of  sexes  is  pointed  out,  but  no  other  distinction 
is  even  implied.  If  this  be  not  divine  authority,  it  is  at  least 
historical  authority,  and  shows  that  the  equality  of  man,  so  far 
from  being  a  modern  doctrine,  is  the  oldest  upon  record. ' 

It  is  also  to  be  observed  that  all  the  religions  known  in  the  world 
are  founded,  so  far  as  they  relate  to  man,  on  the  unity  of  man, 
as  being  all  of  one  degree.  Whether  in  heaven  or  in  hell,  or  in 
whatever  state  man  may  be  supposed  to  exist  hereafter,  the  good 
and  the  bad  are  the  only  distinctions.  Nay,  even  the  laws  of 
governments  are  obliged  to  slide  into  this  principle,  by  making 
degrees  to  consist  in  crimes  and  not  in  persons. 

It  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  truths,  and  of  the  highest  ad- 
vantage to  cultivate.  By  considering  man  in  this  light,  and  by 
instructing  him  to  consider  himself  in  this  light,  it  places  him  in 
a  close  connection  with  all  his  duties,  whether  to  his  Creator  or 
to  the  creation,  of  which  he  is  a  part;  and  it  is  only  when  he  for- 
gets his  origin,  or,  to  use  a  more  fashionable  phrase,  his  birth 
and  family,  that  he  becomes  dissolute.  It  is  not  among  the  least 
of  the  evils  of  the  present  existing  governments  in  all  parts  of 
Europe  that  man,  considered  as  man,  is  thrown  back  to  a  vast 
distance  from  his  Maker,  and  the  artificial  chasm  filled  up  with 
a  succession  of  barriers,  or  sort  of  turnpike  gates,  through  which  he 


PAINE  521 

has  to  pass.  I  will  quote  Mr.  Burke's  catalogue  of  barriers  that 
he  has  set  up  between  man  and  his  Maker.  Putting  himself 
in  the  character  of  a  herald,  he  says:  "We  fear  God — we  look  with 
awe  to  kings — with  affection  to  Parliaments — with  duty  to  magis- 
trates— with  reverence  to  priests,  and  with  respect  to  nobility." 
Mr.  Burke  has  forgotten  to  put  in  "chivalry."  He  has  also  for- 
gotten to  put  in  Peter. 

The  duty  of  man  is  not  a  wilderness  of  turnpike  gates,  through 
which  he  is  to  pass  by  tickets  from  one  to  the  other.  It  is  plain 
and  simple,  and  consists  but  of  two  points.  His  duty  to  God, 
which  every  man  must  feel;  and  with  respect  to  his  neighbor,  to 
do  as  he  would  be  done  by.  If  those  to  whom  power  is  delegated 
do  well,  they  will  be  respected:  if  not,  they  will  be  despised;  and 
with  regard  to  those  to  whom  no  power  is  delegated,  but  who 
assume  it,  the  rational  world  can  know  nothing  of  them. 

Hitherto  we  have  spoken  only  (and  that  but  in  part)  of  the 
natural  rights  of  man.  We  have  now  to  consider  the  civil  rights 
of  man,  and  to  show  how  the  one  originates  from  the  other. 
Man  did  not  enter  into  society  to  become  worse  than  he  was  be- 
fore, nor  to  have  fewer  rights  than  he  had  before,  but  to  have  those 
rights  better  secured.  His  natural  rights  are  the  foundation  of  all 
his  civil  rights.  But  in  order  to  pursue  this  distinction  with  more 
precision,  it  will  be  necessary  to  mark  the  different  qualities  of 
natural  and  civil  rights. 

A  few  words  will  explain  this.  Natural  rights  are  those  which 
appertain  to  man  in  right  of  his  existence.  Of  this  kind  are  all 
the  intellectual  rights,  or  rights  of  the  mind,  and  also  all  those 
rights  of  acting  as  an  individual  for  his  own  comfort  and  happiness, 
which  are  not  injurious  to  the  natural  rights  of  others.  Civil 
rights  are  those  which  appertain  to  man  in  right  of  his  being  a 
member  of  society.  Every  civil  right  has  for  its  foundation  some 
natural  right  preexisting  in  the  individual,  but  to  the  enjoyment 
of  which  his  individual  power  is  not,  in  all  cases,  sufficiently  com- 
petent. Of  this  kind  are  all  those  which  relate  to  security  and 
protection. 

*  From  this  short  review  it  will  be  easy  to  distinguish  between 
that  class  of  natural  rights  which  man  retains  after  entering  into 
society  and  those  which  he  throws  into  the  common  stock  as  a 
member  of  society. 

The  natural  rights  which  he  retains  are  all  those  in  which  the 
power  to  execute  is  as  perfect  in  the  individual  as  the  right  itself. 
Among  this  class,  as  is  before  mentioned,  are  all  the  intellectual 
rights,  or  rights  of  the  mind;  consequently  religion  is  one  of 


522  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

those  rights.  The  natural  rights  which  are  not  retained  are 
those  in  which,  though  the  right  is  perfect  in  the  individual,  the 
power  to  execute  them  is  defective.  They  answer  not  his  purpose. 
A  man,  by  natural  right,  has  a  right  to  judge  in  his  own  cause; 
and  so  far  as  the  right  of  the  mind  is  concerned,  he  never  sur- 
renders it.  But  what  availeth  it  him  to  judge,  if  he  has  not 
power  to  redress?  He  therefore  deposits  this  right  in  the  common 
stock  of  society,  and  takes  the  arm  of  society,  of  which  he  is  a 
part,  in  preference  and  in  addition  to  his  own.  Society  grants 
him  nothing.  Every  man  is  a  proprietor  in  society,  and  draws 
on  the  capital  as  a  matter  of  right. 

From  these  premises  two  or  three  certain  conclusions  will 
follow: 

First.  That  every  civil  right  grows  out  of  a  natural  right;  or, 
in  other  words,  is  a  natural  right  exchanged. 

Secondly.  That  civil  power  properly  considered  as  such  is 
made  up  of  the  aggregate  of  that  class  of  the  natural  rights  of 
man,  which  becomes  defective  in  the  individual  in  point  of  power, 
and  answers  not  his  purpose,  but  when  collected  to  a  focus  be- 
comes competent  to  the  purpose  of  every  one. 

Thirdly.  That  the  power  produced  from  the  aggregate  of 
natural  rights,  imperfect  in  power  in  the  individual,  cannot  be 
applied  to  invade  the  natural  rights  which  are  retained  in  the 
individual,  and  in  which  the  power  to  execute  is  as  perfect  as  the 
right  itself. 

2.     The  Origin  and  Sphere  of  Government l 

Some  writers  have  so  confounded  society  with  government, 
as  to  leave  little  or  no  distinction  between  them;  whereas  they 
are  not  only  different,  but  have  different  origins.  Society  is 
produced  by  our  wants,  and  government  by  our  wickedness;  the 
former  promotes  our  happiness  positively  by  uniting  our  affections, 
the  latter  negatively  by  restraining  our  vices.  The  one  encourages 
intercourse,  the  other  creates  distinctions.  The  first  is  a  patron, 
the  last  a  punisher. 

Society  in  every  state  is  a  blessing,  but  government,  even  in 
its  best  state,  is  but  a  necessary  evil;  in  its  worst  state  an  in- 
tolerable one:  for  when  we  suffer,  or  are  exposed  to  the  same 
miseries  by  a  government,  which  we  might  expect  in  a  country  with- 
out government,  our  calamity  is  heightened  by  reflecting  that  we 

1  Common  Sense  (Conway,  Vol.  I),  pp.  69-71,  and  Rights  of  Man,  Part  Second 
(Conway,  Vol.  II),  pp.  406-409. 


PAINE  523 

furnish  the  means  by  which  we  suffer.  Government,  like  dress, 
is  the  badge  of  lost  innocence;  the  palaces  of  kings  are  built  upon 
the  ruins  of  the  bowers  of  paradise.  For  were  the  impulses  of 
conscience  clear,  uniform  and  irresistibly  obeyed,  man  would 
need  no  other  lawgiver;  but  that  not  being  the  case,  he  finds  it 
necessary  to  surrender  up  a  part  of  his  property  to  furnish  means 
for  the  protection  of  the  rest;  and  this  he  is  induced  to  do  by  the 
same  prudence  which  in  every  other  case  advises  him,  out  of  two 
evils  to  choose  the  least.  Wherefore,  security  being  the  true 
design  and  end  of  government,  it  unanswerably  follows  that 
whatever  form  thereof  appears  most  likely  to  insure  it  to  us, 
with  the  least  expense  and  greatest  benefit,  is  preferable  to  all 
others.! 

In  order  to  gain  a  clear  and  just  idea  of  the  design  and  end 
of  government,  let  us  suppose  a  small  number  of  persons  settled 
in  some  sequestered  part  of  the  earth,  unconnected  with  the  rest; 
they  will  then  represent  the  first  peopling  of  any  country,  or  of  the 
world.  In  this  state  of  natural  liberty,  society  will  be  their 
first  thought.  A  thousand  motives  will  excite  them  thereto; 
the  strength  of  one  man  is  so  unequal  to  his  wants,  and  his  mind 
so  unfitted  for  perpetual  solitude,  that  he  is  soon  obliged  to  seek 
assistance  and  relief  of  another,  who  in  his  turn  requires  the  same. 
Four  or  five  united  would  be  able  to  raise  a  tolerable  dwelling 
in  the  midst  of  a  wilderness,  but  one  man  might  labor  out  the 
common  period  of  life  without  accomplishing  anything;  when  he 
had  felled  his  timber  he  could  not  remove  it,  nor  erect  it  after  it 
was  removed;  hunger  in  the  meantime  would  urge  him  to  quit 
his  work,  and  every  different  want  would  call  him  a  different  way. 
Disease,  nay  even  misfortune,  would  be  death;  for  though  neither 
might  be  mortal,  yet  either  would  disable  him  from  living,  and 
reduce  him  to  a  state  in  which  he  might  rather  be  said  to  perish 
than  to  die. 

Thus  necessity,  like  a  gravitating  power,  would  soon  form  our 
newly  arrived  emigrants  into  society,  the  reciprocal  blessings 
of  which  would  supersede,  and  render  the  obligations  of  law  and 
government  unnecessary  while  they  remained  perfectly  just 
to  each  other;  but  as  nothing  but  Heaven  is  impregnable  to  vice, 
it  will  unavoidably  happen  that  in  proportion  as  they  surmount 
the  first  difficulties  of  emigration,  which  bound  them  together 
in  a  common  cause,  they  will  begin  to  relax  in  their  duty  and 
attachment  to  each  other:  and  this  remissness  will  point  out  the 
necessity  of  establishing  some  form  of  government  to  supply  the 
defect  of  moral  virtue. 


524  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Some  convenient  tree  will  afford  them  a  State  House,  under 
the  branches  of  which  the  whole  colony  may  assemble  to  deliber- 
ate on  public  matters.  It  is  more  than  probable  that  their  first 
laws  will  have  the  title  only  of  Regulations  and  be  enforced  by  no 
other  penalty  than  public  disesteem.  In  this  first  parliament 
every  man  by  natural  right  will  have  a  seat. 

But  as  the  colony  increases,  the  public  concerns  will  increase 
likewise,  and  the  distance  at  which  the  members  may  be  separated 
will  render  it  too  inconvenient  for  all  of  them  to  meet  on  every 
occasion  as  at  first,  when  their  number  was  small,  their  habita- 
tions near,  and  the  public  concerns  few  and  trifling.  This  will 
point  out  the  convenience  of  their  consenting  to  leave  the  legis- 
lative part  to  be  managed  by  a  select  number  chosen  from  the 
whole  body,  who  are  supposed  to  have  the  same  concerns  at 
stake  which  those  have  who  appointed  them,  and  who  will  act 
in  the  same  manner  as  the  whole  body  would  act  were  they 
present.  If  the  colony  continue  increasing,  it  will  become  neces- 
sary to  augment  the  number  of  representatives,  and  that  the 
interest  of  every  part  of  the  colony  may  be  attended  to,  it  will  be 
found  best  to  divide  the  whole  into  convenient  parts,  each  part 
sending  its  proper  number:  and  that  the  elected  might  never  form 
to  themselves  an  interest  separate  from  the  electors,  prudence 
will  point  out  the  propriety  of  having  elections  often:  because  as 
the  elected  might  by  that  means  return  and  mix  again  with  the 
general  body  of  the  electors  in  a  few  months,  their  fidelity  to  the 
public  will  be  secured  by  the  prudent  reflection  of  not  making 
a  rod  for  themselves.  And  as  this  frequent  interchange  will 
establish  a  common  interest  with  every  part  of  the  community, 
they  will  mutually  and  naturally  support  each  other,  and  on  this 
(not  on  the  unmeaning  name  of  king)  depends  the  strength  of 
government,  and  the  happiness  of  the  governed. 

Here  then  is  the  origin  and  rise  of  government ;  namely,  a  mode 
rendered  necessary  by  the  inability  of  moral  virtue  to  govern  the 
world;  here  too  is  the  design  and  end  of  government,  viz.  Free- 
dom and  security.  And  however  our  eyes  may  be  dazzled  with 
show,  or  our  ears  deceived  by  sound;  however  prejudice  may 
warp  our  wills,  or  interest  darken  our  understanding,  the  simple 
voice  of  nature  and  reason  will  say,  'tis  right. 

Great  part  of  that  order  which  reigns  among  mankind  is  not 
the  effect  of  government.  It  has  its  origin  in  the  principles  of 
society  and  the  natural  constitution  of  man.  It  existed  prior  to 
government,  and  would  exist  if  the  formality  of  government  was 


PAINE  525 

abolished.  The  mutual  dependence  and  reciprocal  interest  which 
man  has  upon  man,  and  all  the  parts  of  civilized  community  upon 
each  other,  create  that  great  chain  of  connection  which  holds  it 
together.  The  landholder,  the  farmer,  the  manufacturer,  the 
merchant,  the  tradesman,  and  every  occupation,  prospers  by  the 
aid  which  each  receives  from  the  other,  and  from  the  whole. 
Common  interest  regulates  their  concerns,  and  forms  their  law; 
and  the  laws  which  common  usage  ordains  have  a  greater  in- 
fluence than  the  laws  of  government.  In  fine  society  performs 
for  itself  almost  everything  which  is  ascribed  to  government. 

To  understand  the  nature  and  quantity  of  government  proper 
for  man,  it  is  necessary  to  attend  to  his  character.  As  Nature 
created  him  for  social  life,  she  fitted  him  for  the  station  she  in- 
tended. In  all  cases  she  made  his  natural  wants  greater  than 
his  individual  powers.  No  one  man  is  capable,  without  the  aid 
of  society,  of  supplying  his  own  wants;  and  those  wants,  acting 
upon  every  individual,  impel  the  whole  of  them  into  society,  as 
naturally  as  gravitation  acts  to  a  center. 

But  she  has  gone  further.  She  has  not  only  forced  man  into 
society  by  a  diversity  of  wants  which  the  reciprocal  aid  of  each 
other  can  supply,  but  she  has  implanted  in  him  a  system  of  social 
affections,  which,  though  not  necessary  to  his  existence,  are  essen- 
tial to  his  happiness.  There  is  no  period  in  life  when  this  love 
for  society  ceases  to  act.  It  begins  and  ends  with  our  being. 

If  we  examine  with  attention  into  the  composition  and  con- 
stitution of  man,  the  diversity  of  his  wants,  and  the  diversity  of 
talents  in  different  men  for  reciprocally  accommodating  the  wants 
of  each  other,  his  propensity  to  society,  and  consequently  to  pre- 
serve the  advantages  resulting  from  it,  we  shall  easily  discover 
that  a  great  part  of  what  is  called  government  is  mere  imposition. 

Government  is  no  further  necessary  than  to  supply  the  few 
cases  to  which  society  and  civilization  are  not  conveniently  com- 
petent; and  instances  are  not  wanting  to  show,  that  everything 
which  government  can  usefully  add  thereto,  has  been  performed 
by  the  common  consent  of  society,  without  government. 

For  upwards  of  two  years  from  the  commencement  of  the 
American  War,  and  to  a  longer  period  in  several  of  the  American 
states,  there  were  no  established  forms  of  government.  The  old 
governments  had  been  abolished,  and  the  country  was  too  much 
occupied  in  defense  to  employ  its  attention  in  establishing  new 
governments;  yet  during  this  interval  order  and  harmony  were 
preserved  as  inviolate  as  in  any  country  in  Europe.  There  is  a 
natural  aptness  in  man,  and  more  so  in  society,  because  it  em- 


526  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

braces  a  greater  variety  of  abilities  and  resource,  to  accommo- 
date itself  to  whatever  situation  it  is  in.  The  instant  formal 
government  is  abolished,  society  begins  to  act:  a  general  associa- 
tion takes  place,  and  common  interest  produces  common  security. 

So  far  is  it  from  being  true,  as  has  been  pretended,  that  the 
abolition  of  any  formal  government  is  the  dissolution  of  society, 
that  it  acts  by  a  contrary  impulse,  and  brings  the  latter  the  closer 
together.  All  that  part  of  its  organization  which  it  has  committed 
to  its  government  devolves  again  upon  itself,  and  acts  through 
its  medium.  When  men,  as  well  from  natural  instinct  as  from 
reciprocal  benefits,  have  habituated  themselves  to  social  and 
civilized  life,  there  is  always  enough  of  its  principles  in  practice  to 
carry  them  through  any  changes  they  may  find  necessary  or  con- 
venient to  make  in  their  government.  In  short,  man  is  so 
naturally  a  creature  of  society  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  put 
him  out  of  it. 

Formal  government  makes  but  a  small  part  of  civilized  life; 
and  when  even  the  best  that  human  wisdom  can  devise  is  estab- 
lished, it  is  a  thing  more  in  name  and  idea  than  in  fact.  It  is  to 
the  great  and  fundamental  principles  of  society  and  civilization — to 
the  common  usage  universally  consented  to,  and  mutually  and 
reciprocally  maintained — to  the  unceasing  circulation  of  interest, 
which,  passing  through  its  million  channels,  invigorates  the  whole 
mass  of  civilized  man — it  is  to  these  things,  infinitely  more  than  to 
anything  which  even  the  best  instituted  government  can  perform, 
that  the  safety  and  prosperity  of  the  individual  and  of  the  whole 
depend. 

The  more  perfect  civilization  is,  the  less  occasion  has  it  for 
government,  because  the  more  does  it  regulate  its  own  affairs,  and 
govern  itself;  but  so  contrary  is  the  practice  of  old  governments 
to  the  reason  of  the  case,  that  the  expenses  of  them  increase  in 
the  proportion  they  ought  to  diminish.  It  is  but  few  general  laws 
that  civilized  life  requires,  and  those  of  such  common  usefulness, 
that  whether  they  are  enforced  by  the  forms  of  government  or  not, 
the  effect  will  be  nearly  the  same.  If  we  consider  what  the  prin- 
ciples are  that  first  condense  men  into  society,  and  what  are  the 
motives  that  regulate  their  mutual  intercourse  afterwards,  we 
shall  find,  by  the  time  we  arrive  at  what  is  called  government, 
that  nearly  the  whole  of  the  business  is  performed  by  the  natural 
operation  of  the  parts  upon  each  other. 

Man,  with  respect  to  all  those  matters,  is  more  a  creature  of 
consistency  than  he  is  aware,  or  than  governments  would  wish 
him  to  believe.  All  the  great  laws  of  society  are  laws  of  nature. 


PAINE  527 

Those  of  trade  and  commerce,  whether  with  respect  to  the  inter- 
course of  individuals  or  of  nations,  are  laws  of  mutual  and  recipro- 
cal interest.  They  are  followed  and  obeyed,  because  it  is  the 
interest  of  the  parties  so  to  do,  and  not  on  account  of  any  formal 
laws  their  governments  may  impose  or  interpose. 

But  how  often  is  the  natural  propensity  to  society  disturbed 
or  destroyed  by  the  operations  of  government!  When  the  latter, 
instead  of  being  ingrafted  on  the  principles  of  the  former,  assumes 
to  exist  for  itself,  and  acts  by  partialities  of  favor  and  oppression, 
it  becomes  the  cause  of  the  mischiefs  it  ought  to  prevent. 

j.     Representative  and  Republican  Government l 

Reason  and  Ignorance,  the  opposites  of  each  other,  influence 
the  great  bulk  of  mankind.  If  either  of  these  can  be  rendered 
sufficiently  extensive  in  a  country,  the  machinery  of  government 
goes  easily  on.  Reason  obeys  itself;  and  Ignorance  submits  to 
whatever  is  dictated  to  it. 

The  two  modes  of  the  government  which  prevail  in  the  world 
are,  first,  government  by  election  and  representation:  secondly, 
government  by  hereditary  succession.  The  former  is  generally 
known  by  the  name  of  republic;  the  latter  by  that  of  monarchy 
and  aristocracy. 

Those  two  distinct  and  opposite  forms  erect  themselves  on 
the  two  distinct  and  opposite  bases  of  Reason  and  Ignorance. 
As  the  exercise  of  government  requires  talents  and  abilities, 
and  as  talents  and  abilities  cannot  have  hereditary  descent,  it 
is  evident  that  hereditary  succession  requires  a  belief  from  man 
to  which  his  reason  cannot  subscribe,  and  which  can  only  be 
established  upon  his  ignorance;  and  the  more  ignorant  any 
country  is,  the  better  it  is  fitted  for  this  species  of  government. 

On  the  contrary,  government,  in  a  well-constituted  republic, 
requires  no  belief  from  man  beyond  what  his  reason  can  give. 
He  sees  the  rationale  of  the  whole  system,  its  origin  and  its  opera- 
tion; and  as  it  is  best  supported  when  best  understood,  the  human 
faculties  act  with  boldness,  and  acquire,  under  this  form  of 
government,  a  gigantic  manliness. 

As,  therefore,  each  of  those  forms  acts  on  a  different  base,  the 
one  moving  freely  by  the  aid  of  reason,  the  other  by  ignorance, 
we  have  next  to  consider  what  it  is  that  gives  motion  to  that 
species  of  government  which  is  called  mixed  government,  or,  as 

1  Rights  of  Man  (Conway,  Vol.  II),  pp.  382-383,  385-386,  and  Rights  of  Man, 
Part  Second  (ibid.},  pp.  421-422. 


528  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

it  is  sometimes  ludicrously  styled,  a  government  of  this,  that  and 
t'other. 

The  moving  power  in  this  species  of  government  is,  of  necessity, 
corruption.  However  imperfect  election  and  representation  may 
be  in  mixed  governments,  they  still  give  exercise  to  a  greater 
portion  of  reason  than  is  convenient  to  the  hereditary  part;  and 
therefore  it  becomes  necessary  to  buy  the  reason  up.  A  mixed 
government  is  an  imperfect  everything,  cementing  and  soldering 
the  discordant  parts  together  by  corruption,  to  act  as  a  whole. 
Mr.  Burke  appears  highly  disgusted  that  France,  since  she  had 
resolved  on  a  revolution,  did  not  adopt  what  he  calls  "A  British 
Constitution"',  and  the  regretful  manner  in  which  he  expresses 
himself  on  this  occasion  implies  a  suspicion  that  the  British  Con- 
stitution needed  something  to  keep  its  defects  in  countenance. 
.--•  In  mixed  governments  there  is  no  responsibility;  the  parts 
cover  each  other  till  responsibility  is  lost ;  and  the  corruption  which 
moves  the  machine,  contrives  at  the  same  time  its  own  escape. 
When  it  is  laid  down  as  a  maxim  that  a  King  can  do  no  wrong,  it 
places  him  in  a  state  of  similar  security  with  that  of  ideots  and 
persons  insane,  and  responsibility  is  out  of  the  question  with 
respect  to  himself.  It  then  descends  upon  the  Minister,  who 
shelters  himself  under  a  majority  in  Parliament,  which,  by  places, 
pensions,  and  corruption,  he  can  always  command;  and  that 
majority  justifies  itself  by  the  same  authority  with  which  it  pro- 
tects the  Minister.  In  this  rotatory  motion,  responsibility  is 
thrown  off  from  the  parts,  and  from  the  whole.  "* 

What  is  government  more  than  the  management  of  the  affairs 
of  a  nation?  It  is  not,  and  from  its  nature  cannot  be,  the  property 
of  any  particular  man  or  family,  but  of  the  whole  community, 
at  whose  expence  it  is  supported;  and  though  by  force  and  con- 
trivance it  has  been  usurped  into  an  inheritance,  the  usurpation 
cannot  alter  the  right  of  things.  Sovereignty,  as  a  matter  of 
right,  appertains  to  the  nation  only,  and  not  to  any  individual; 
and  a  nation  has  at  all  times  an  inherent  indefeasible  right  to 
abolish  any  form  of  government  it  finds  inconvenient,  and  to 
establish  such  as  accords  with  its  interest,  disposition  and  happi- 
ness. The  romantic  and  barbarous  distinction  of  men  into 
kings  and  subjects,  though  it  may  suit  the  condition  of  courtiers, 
cannot  that  of  citizens;  and  is  exploded  by  the  principle  upon  which 
governments  are  now  founded.  Every  citizen  is  a  member  of  the 
sovereignty,  and,  as  such,  can  acknowledge  no  personal  sub- 
jection; and  his  obedience  can  be  only  to  the  laws. 


PAINE  529 

When  men  think  of  what  government  is,  they  must  necessarily 
suppose  it  to  possess  a  knowledge  of  all  the  objects  and  matters 
upon  which  its  authority  is  to  be  exercised.  In  this  view  of 
government,  the  republican  system,  as  established  by  America 
and  France,  operates  to  embrace  the  whole  of  a  nation ;  and  the 
knowledge  necessary  to  the  interest  of  all  the  parts  is  to  be  found 
in  the  center,  which  the  parts  by  representation  form.  But  the 
old  governments  are  on  a  construction  that  excludes  knowledge 
as  well  as  happiness;  government  by  monks,  who  knew  nothing  of 
the.  world  beyond  the  walls  of  a  convent,  is  as  consistent  as  gov- 
ernment by  kings. 

What  were  formerly  called  revolutions,  were  little  more  than 
a  change  of  persons,  or  an  alteration  of  local  circumstances. 
They  rose  and  fell  like  things  of  course,  and  had  nothing  in  their 
existence  or  their  fate  that  could  influence  beyond  the  spot  that 
produced  them.  But  what  we  now  see  in  the  world,  from  the 
revolutions  of  America  and  France,  are  a  renovation  of  the 
natural  order  of  things,  a  system  of  principles  as  universal  as 
truth  and  the  existence  of  man,  and  combining  moral  with  political 
happiness  and  national  prosperity. 

"I.  Men  are  born,  and  always  continue,  free  and  equal  in  respect 
of  their  rights.  Civil  distinctions,  therefore,  can  be  founded  only  on 
public  utility. 

"II.  The  end  of  all  political  associations  is  the  preservation  of 
the  natural  and  imprescriptible  rights  of  man;  and  these  rights  are 
liberty,  property,  security,  and  resistance  of  oppression. 

"III.  The  nation  is  essentially  the  source  of  all  sovereignty; 
nor  can  any  INDIVIDUAL,  or  ANY  BODY  OF  MEN,  be  entitled  to  any 
authority  which  is  not  expressly  derived  from  it." 

It  has  always  been  the  political  craft  of  courtiers  and  court- 
governments  to  abuse  something  which  they  called  republican- 
ism; but  what  republicanism  was,  or  is,  they  never  attempt  to 
explain.  Let  us  examine  a  little  into  this  case. 

The  only  forms  of  government  are,  the  democratical,  the  aristo- 
cratical,  the  monarchical,  and  what  is  now  called  the  representa- 
tive. 

What  is  called  a  republic  is  not  any  particular  form  of  govern- 
ment. It  is  wholly  characteristical  of  the  purport,  matter  or 
object  for  which  government  ought  to  be  instituted,  and  on  which 
it  is  to  be  employed,  RES-PUBLICA,  the  public  affairs,  or  the  pub- 
lic good;  or,  literally  translated,  the  public  thing.  It  is  a  word  of 
a  good  original,  referring  to  what  ought  to  be  the  character  and 


530  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

business  of  government ;  and  in  this  sense  it  is  naturally  opposed 
to  the  word  monarchy,  which  has  a  base  original  signification. 
It  means  arbitrary  power  in  an  individual  person;  in  the  exercise 
of  which,  himself,  and  not  the  res-publica,  is  the  object. 

Every  government  that  does  not  act  on  the  principle  of  a 
republic,  or,  in  other  words,  that  does  not  make  the  res-publica 
its  whole  and  sole  object,  is  not  a  good  government.  Republican 
government  is  no  other  than  government  established  and  con- 
ducted for  the  interest  of  the  public,  as  well  individually  as 
collectively.  It  is  not  necessarily  connected  with  any  particular 
form,  but  it  most  naturally  associates  with  the  representative 
form,  as  being  best  calculated  to  secure  the  end  for  which  a  nation 
is  at  the  expense  of  supporting  it.  ' 

Various  forms  of  government  have  affected  to  style  themselves 
a  republic.  Poland  calls  itself  a  republic,  which  is  an  hereditary 
aristocracy,  with  what  is  called  an  elective  monarchy.  Holland 
calls  itself  a  republic,  which  is  chiefly  aristocratical,  with  an 
hereditary  stadtholdership.  But  the  government  of  America, 
which  is  wholly  on  the  system  of  representation,  is  the  only  real 
republic,  in  character  and  in  practice,  that  now  exists.  Its  govern- 
ment has  no  other  object  than  the  public  business  of  the  nation, 
and  therefore  it  is  properly  a  republic;  and  the  Americans  have 
taken  care  that  THIS,  and  no  other,  shall  always  be  the  object 
of  their  government,  by  their  rejecting  everything  hereditary, 
and  establishing  governments  on  the  system  of  representation 
only.  Those  who  have  said  that  a  republic  is  not  a  form  of 
government  calculated  for  countries  of  great  extent,  mistook,  in 
the  first  place,  the  business  of  government,  for  a  form  of  govern- 
ment; for  the  res-publica  equally  appertains  to  every  extent  of 
territory  and  population.  And,  in  the  second  place,  if  they  meant 
anything  with  respect  to  form,  it  was  the  simple  democratical 
form,  such  as  was  the  mode  of  government  in  the  ancient  democra- 
cies, in  which  there  was  no  representation.  The  case,  therefore, 
is  not  that  a  republic  cannot  be  extensive,  but  that  it  cannot  be 
extensive  on  the  simple  democratical  form;  and  the  question 
naturally  presents  itself,  What  is  the  best  form  of  government  for 
conducting  the  RES-PUBLICA,  or  the  PUBLIC  BUSINESS  of  a  nation, 
after  it  becomes  too  extensive  and  populous  for  the  simple  demo- 
cratical form?  It  cannot  be  monarchy,  because  monarchy  is  sub- 
ject to  an  objection  of  the  same  amount  to  which  the  simple 
democratical  form  was  subject. 

It  is  possible  that  an  individual  may  lay  down  a  system  of 
principles,  on  which  government  shall  be  constitutionally  estab- 


PAINE  531 

lished  to  any  extent  of  territory.  This  is  no  more  than  an  opera- 
tion of  the  mind,  acting  by  its  own  powers.  But  the  practice 
upon  those  principles,  as  applying  to  the  various  and  numerous 
circumstances  of  a  nation,  its  agriculture,  manufacture,  trade, 
commerce,  etc.,  etc.,  requires  a  knowledge  of  a  different  kind, 
and  which  can  be  had  only  from  the  various  parts  of  society.  It 
is  an  assemblage  of  practical  knowledge,  which  no  individual  can 
possess;  and  therefore  the  monarchical  form  is  as  much  limited, 
in  useful  practice,  from  the  incompetency  of  knowledge,  as  was  the 
democratical  form  from  the  multiplicity  of  population.  The 
one  degenerates,  by  extension,  into  confusion;  the  other,  into  igno- 
rance and  incapacity,  of  which  all  the  great  monarchies  are  an 
evidence.  The  monarchical  form,  therefore,  could  not  be  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  democratical,  because  it  has  equal  inconveniences. 

Much  less  could  it  when  made  hereditary.  This  is  the  most 
effectual  of  all  forms  to  preclude  knowledge.  Neither  could 
the  high  democratical  mind  have  voluntarily  yielded  itself  to 
be  governed  by  children  and  ideots,  and  all  the  motley  insignifi- 
cance of  character,  which  attends  such  a  mere  animal  system,  the 
disgrace  and  the  reproach  of  reason  and  of  man. 

As  to  the  aristocratical  form,  it  has  the  same  vices  and  defects 
with  the  monarchical,  except  that  the  chance  of  abilities  is  better 
from  the  proportion  of  numbers,  but  there  is  still  no  security  for 
the  right  use  and  application  of  them. 

Referring  them  to  the  original  simple  democracy,  it  affords 
the  true  data  from  which  government  on  a  large  scale  can  begin. 
It  is  incapable  of  extension,  not  from  its  principle,  but  from 
the  inconvenience  of  its  form;  and  monarchy  and  aristocracy, 
from  their  incapacity.  Retaining,  then,  democracy  as  the  ground, 
and  rejecting  the  corrupt  systems  of  monarchy  and  aristocracy, 
the  representative  system  naturally  presents  itself;  remedying 
at  once  the  defects  of  the  simple  democracy  as  to  form,  and  the 
incapacity  of  the  other  two  with  respect  to  knowledge. 

Simple  democracy  was  society  governing  itself  without  the 
aid  of  secondary  means.  By  ingrafting  representation  upon  de- 
mocracy, we  arrive  at  a  system  of  government  capable  of  embracing 
and  confederating  all  the  various  interests  and  every  extent  of 
territory  and  population;  and  that  also  with  advantages  as  much 
superior  to  hereditary  government,  as  the  republic  of  letters  is 
to  hereditary  literature. 

It  is  on  this  system  that  the  American  government  is  founded. 
It  is  representation  ingrafted  upon  democracy.  It  has  fixed  the 
form  by  a  scale  parallel  in  all  cases  to  the  extent  of  the  principle. 


532  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

What  Athens  was  in  miniature  America  will  be  in  magnitude. 
The  one  was  the  wonder  of  the  ancient  world;  the  other  is  becoming 
the  admiration  of  the  present.  It  is  the  easiest  of  all  the  forms  of 
government  to  be  understood  and  the  most  eligible  in  practice; 
and  excludes  at  once  the  ignorance  and  insecurity  of  the  hereditary 
mode,  and  the  inconvenience  of  the  simple  democracy. 

It  is  impossible  to  conceive  a  system  of  government  capable 
of  acting  over  such  an  extent  of  territory,  and  such  a  circle  of 
interests,  as  is  immediately  produced  by  the  operation  of  repre- 
sentation. France,  great  and  populous  as  it  is,  is  but  a  spot 
in  the  capaciousness  of  the  system.  It  is  preferable  to  simple 
democracy  even  in  small  territories.  Athens,  by  representation, 
would  have  outrivaled  her  own  democracy. 

That  which  is  called  government,  or  rather  that  which  we 
ought  to  conceive  government  to  be,  is  no  more  than  some  common 
center  in  which  all  the  parts  of  society  unite.  This  cannot  be 
accomplished  by  any  method  so  conducive  to  the  various  interests 
of  the  community,  as  by  the  representative  system.  It  concen- 
trates the  knowledge  necessary  to  the  interest  of  the  parts,  and 
of  the  whole.  It  places  government  in  a  state  of  constant  ma- 
turity. It  is,  as  has  already  been  observed,  never  young,  never  old. 
It  is  subject  neither  to  nonage  nor  dotage.  It  is  never  in  the 
cradle  nor  on  crutches.  It  admits  not  of  a  separation  between 
knowledge  and  power,  and  is  superior,  as  government  always  ought 
to  be,  to  all  the  accidents  of  individual  man,  and  is  therefore 
superior  to  what  is  called  monarchy.  / 


SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life: 

Con  way,  The  Life  of  Thomas  Paine.    Two  volumes. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  "Thomas  Paine,"  in  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Merriam,  "Thomas  Paine's  Political  Theories,"  in  Political  Science  Quar- 
terly, Vol.  XIV  (189?),  pp.  389-403. 
Janet,  Histoire  de  la  science  politique,  Vol.  II,  pp.  694-96. 


BENTHAM 


XX,    JEREMY  BENTHAM  (1748-1832) 

INTRODUCTION 

We  take  our  final  reading  from  the  work  of  a  leading  English 
philosopher  of  law  and  morals,  Jeremy  Bentham.  His  primary 
interest  was  not  so  much  in  systematic  political  theory,  or  in 
constitutional  reform,  as  in  revision  of  governmental  practice. 
His  great  influence  has  been  within  the  fields  of  ethics  and  juris- 
prudence, and,  on  the  practical  side,  in  reforms  in  methods  of  legis- 
lation and  administration. 

Bentham  was  the  son  of  a  successful  London  attorney.  His 
predominantly  intellectual  interests  were  revealed  in  his  early 
youth.  He  entered  Oxford  in  his  fourteenth  year,  receiving  his 
bachelor's  degree  three  years  later,  and  his  master's  degree  when 
nineteen  years  of  age.  He  engaged  in  legal  practice  for  a  brief 
period,  with  very  little  activity  or  interest  in  that  work.  An 
inherited  fortune  relieved  him  of  the  necessity  of  pursuing  a  regular 
vocation,  and  his  long  life  was  devoted  to  study,  observation  and 
writing  in  his  favorite  fields. 

Bentham's  great  practical  aim  was  to  secure  the  application 
of  ethical  and  rational  principles  to  governmental  action  as  mani- 
fested in  the  formulation,  expression,  recording  and  enforcement 
of  law.  His  theoretical  interest  in  private  conduct  was  directed 
chiefly  to  that  part  of  private  conduct  that  is  subject  to  control 
by  civil  law.  His  fundamental  idea  in  ethics  and  jurisprudence  is 
the  principle  of  utility,  or  of  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest 
number.  He  did  not  originate  doctrines  in  these  domains;  but  he 
stated  and  expounded  principles  in  such  way  as  to  make  almost 
axiomatic  many  doctrines  which  before  him  enjoyed  limited  ac- 
ceptance and  understanding.  His  first  book  was  published 
anonymously  in  1776;  the  design  of  this  work  is  indicated  in  the 
title — A  Fragment  on  Government;  Being  an  Examination  of  what 
is  delivered,  on  the  Subject  of  Government  in  General,  in  the  Intro- 
duction to  Sir  William  Blackstone's  Commentaries;  with  a  Preface 
in  which  is  given  a  Critique  on  the  Work  at  large.  Its  attack  is 
directed  primarily  against  the  conservative  temper  and  logical 
fallacies  of  Blackstone's  Commentaries.  The  work  in  general  is 

535 


536  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

a  destructive  criticism  of  prevailing  ideas  in  political  theory 
and  jurisprudence,  particularly  the  doctrines  of  natural  rights  and 
social  contract.  But  the  principle  of  utility  receives  positive 
statement  as  the  all-sufficient  foundation  of  sovereignty  and  po- 
litical obligation.  The  author's  numerous  subsequent  books  and 
pamphlets1  are  the  product  of  his  vigorous  and  broad  interest  in 
legal,  administrative  and  fiscal  advancement,  and  in  the  criticism 
of  prevailing  tenets  in  religion  and  morals. 

In  1823  Bentham  took  part  in  the  foundation  of  the  West- 
minster Review,  which  became  the  leading  journal  of  political 
and  religious  radicalism.  He  worked  for  his  various  projects 
not  only  through  books  and  pamphlets,  but  also  by  more  direct 
means,  as,  for  example,  through  a  very  extensive  correspondence. 
In  this  more  direct  agitation  he  was  especially  interested  in  the 
codification  of  law,  in  the  improvement  of  the  process  of  legislation, 
in  the  removal  of  abuses  from  legal  procedure,  and  in  prison 
reform. 

Bentham's  greater  influence  in  political  theory  comes  from 
his  critical  discussion,  from  his  logical  method,  and  from  his 
emphasis  upon  the  utilitarian  motive  of  political  institutions  and 
upon  the  utilitarian  standard  for  judging  and  amending  such 
institutions.  The  basis  of  his  more  important  ideas  was  given  in 
his  Fragment  on  Government.  Here  also  his  precision  and  clearness 
of  method  and  expression  are  seen  to  best  effect.  The  readings 
selected  from  this  work  embody  his  definition  of  political  society, 
his  criticism  of  the  social-contract  theory,  and  his  statement  of 
the  principle  of  utility  as  the  ground  and  limit  of  sovereignty. 

READINGS  FROM  A  FRAGMENT  ON  GOVERNMENT  2 

1.     The  Distinction  Between  Political  and  Natural  Society 3 

X.  The  idea  of  a  natural  society  is  a  negative  one.  The  idea 
of  a  political  society  is  a  positive  one.  'Tis  with  the  latter,  there- 
fore, we  should  begin. 

When  a  number  of  persons  (whom  we  may  style  subjects)  are 

1  For  titles  of  these,  cf.  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  Vol.  IV,  pp. 
279-280. 

2  The  selections  are  from  A  Fragment  on  Government,  by  Jeremy  Bentham. 
Edited  by  F.  C.  Montague.    Oxford,  1891.    By  permission  of  the  Delegates 
of  the  Clarendon  Press. 

A  few  of  Bentham's  foot-notes  are  reproduced. 

3  Ch.  I,  pars,  x-xvii,  xix-xxvii. 


BENTHAM  537 

supposed  to  be  in  the  habit  of  paying  obedience  to  a  person,  or  an 
assemblage  of  persons,  of  a  known  and  certain  description  (whom 
we  may  call  governor  or  governors)  such  persons  altogether  (sub- 
jects and  governors)  are  said  to  be  in  a  state  of  political  SOCIETY. 

XI.  The  idea  of  a  state  of  natural  SOCIETY  is,  as  we  have  said, 
a  negative  one.     When  a  number  of  persons  are  supposed  to  be  in 
the  habit  of  conversing  with  each  other,  at  the  same  time  that 
they  are  not  in  any  such  habit  as  mentioned  above,  they  are  said 
to  be  in  a  state  of  natural  SOCIETY. 

XII.  If  we  reflect  a  little,  we  shall  perceive,  that,  between 
these  two  states,  there  is  not  that  explicit  separation  which  these 
names,  and   these   definitions   might   teach   one,  at   first  sight, 
to  expect.     It  is  with  them  as  with  light  and  darkness:  however 
distinct  the  ideas  may  be,  that  are,  at  first  mention,  suggested  by 
those  names,  the  things  themselves  have  no  determinate  bound 
to  separate  them.     The  circumstance  that  has  been  spoken  of 
as  constituting  the  difference  between  these  two  states,  is  the 
presence  or  absence  of  an  habit  of  obedience.     This  habit,  accord- 
ingly, has  been  spoken  of  simply  as  present  (that  is,  as  being  per- 
fectly present)  or,  in  other  words,  we  have  spoken  as  if  there  were 
a  perfect  habit  of  obedience,  in  the  one  case:  it  has  been  spoken  of 
simply  as  absent  (that  is,  as  being  perfectly  absent)  or,  in  other 
words,  we  have  spoken  as  if  there  were  no  habit  of  obedience  at 
all,  in  the  other.     But  neither  of  these  manners  of  speaking, 
perhaps,  is  strictly  just.     Few,  in  fact,  if  any,  are  the  instances 
of  this  habit  being  perfectly  absent;  certainly  none  at  all,  of  its 
being  perfectly  present.     Governments  accordingly,   in  propor- 
tion as  the  habit  of  obedience  is  more  perfect,  recede  from,  in 
proportion  as  it  is  less  perfect,  approach  to,  a  state  of  nature: 
and  instances  may  present  themselves  in  which  it  shall  be  difficult 
to  say  whether  a  habit,  perfect,  in  the  degree  in  which,  to  consti- 
tute a  government,  it  is  deemed  necessary  it  should  be  perfect, 
does  subsist  or  not. 

XIII.  On  these  considerations,  the  supposition  of  a  perfect 
state  of  nature,  or,  as  it  may  be  termed,  a  state  of  society  perfectly 
natural,  may,  perhaps,  be  justly  pronounced,  what  our  Author 
for  the  moment  seemed  to  think  it,  an  extravagant  supposition: 
but  then  that  of  a  government  in  this  sense  perfect;  or,  as  it  may  be 
termed,  a  state  of  society  perfectly  political,  a  state  of  perfect 
political  union,  a  state  of  perfect  submission  in  the  subject  of  perfect 
authority  in  the  governor,  is  no  less  so.1 

1  It  is  true  that  every  person  must,  for  some  time,  at  least,  after  his  birth, 
necessarily  be  in  a  state  of  subjection  with  respect  to  his  parents,  or  those  who 


538  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

XIV.  A  remark  there  is,  which,  for  the  more  thoroughly 
clearing  up  of  our  notions  on  this  subject,  it  may  be  proper  here 
to  make.  To  some  ears,  the  phrases,  " state  of  nature,"  "state 
of  political  society,"  may  carry  the  appearance  of  being  absolute 
in  their  signification :  as  if  the  condition  of  a  man,  or  a  company  of 
men,  in  one  of  these  states,  or  in  the  other,  were  a  matter  that 
depended  altogether  upon  themselves.  But  this  is  not  the  case. 
To  the  expression  "state  of  nature,"  no  more  than  to  the  ex- 
pression "state  of  political  society,"  can  any  precise  meaning  be 
annexed,  without  reference  to  a  party  different  from  that  one 
who  is  spoken  of  as  being  in  the  state  in  question.  This  will 
readily  be  perceived.  The  difference  between  the  two  states  lies, 
as  we  have  observed,  in  the  habit  of  obedience.  With  respect  then 
to  a  habit  of  obedience,  it  can  neither  be  understood  as  subsisting 
in  any  person,  nor  as  not  subsisting  in  any  person,  but  with  refer- 
ence to  some  other  person.  For  one  party  to  obey,  there  must  be 
another  party  that  is  obeyed.  But  this  party  who  is  obeyed,  may 
at  different  times  be  different.  Hence  may  one  and  the  same 
party  be  conceived  to  obey  and  not  to  obey  at  the  same  time,  so  as 
it  be  with  respect  to  different  persons,  or  as  we  may  say,  to  different 
objects  of  obedience.  Hence  it  is,  then,  that  one  and  the  same 
party  may  be  said  to  be  in  a  state  of  nature,  and  not  to  be  in  a  state 
of  nature,  and  that  at  one  and  the  same  time,  according  as  it  is 

stand  in  the  place  of  parents  to  him;  and  that  a  perfect  one,  or  at  least  as  near 
to  being  a  perfect  one,  as  any  that  we  see.  But  for  all  this,  the  sort  of  society 
that  is  constituted  by  a  state  of  subjection  thus  circumstanced,  does  not  come 
up  to  the  idea  that,  I  believe,  is  generally  entertained  by  those  who  speak  of  a 
political  society.  To  constitute  what  is  meant  in  general  by  that  phrase,  a 
greater  number  of  members  is  required,  or,  at  least,  a  duration  capable  of  a 
longer  continuance.  Indeed,  for  this  purpose  nothing  less,  I  take  it,  than  an 
indefinite  duration  is  required.  A  society,  to  come  within  the  notion  of  what  is 
originally  meant  by  a  political  one,  must  be  such  as,  in  its  nature,  is  not  inca- 
pable of  continuing  for  ever  in  virtue  of  the  principles  which  gave  it  birth. 
This,  it  is  plain,  is  not  the  case  with  such  a  family  society,  of  which  a  parent, 
or  a  pair  of  parents  are  at  the  head.  In  such  a  society,  the  only  principle  of 
union  which  is  certain  and  uniform  in  its  operation,  is  the  natural  weakness  of 
those  of  its  members  that  are  in  a  state  of  subjection;  that  is,  the  children;  a 
principle  which  has  but  a  short  and  limited  continuance.  I  question  whether  it 
be  the  case  even  with  a  family  society,  subsisting  in  virtue  of  collateral  consan- 
guinity; and  that  for  the  like  reason.  Not  but  that  even  in  this  case  a  habit  of 
obedience,  as  perfect  as  any  we  see  examples  of,  may  subsist  for  a  time;  to  wit, 
in  virtue  of  the  same  moral  principles  which  may  protract  a  habit  of  filial  obe- 
dience beyond  the  continuance  of  the  physical  ones  which  gave  birth  to  it:  I 
mean  affection,  gratitude,  awe,  the  force  of  habit,  and  the  like.  But  it  is  not 
long,  even  in  this  case,  before  the  bond  of  connection  must  either  become  im- 
perceptible, or  lose  its  influence  by  being  too  extended. 

These  considerations,  therefore,  it  will  be  proper  to  bear  in  mind  in  applying 
the  definition  of  political  society  above  given  [in  par.  10]  and  in  order  to  recon- 
cile it  with  what  is  said  further  on  [in  par.  17]. 


BENTHAM  639 

this  or  that  party  that  is  taken  for  the  other  object  of  comparison. 
The  case  is,  that  in  common  speech,  when  no  particular  object  of 
comparison  is  specified,  all  persons  in  general  are  intended:  so 
that  when  a  number  of  persons  are  said  simply  to  be  in  a  state  of 
nature,  what  is  understood  is,  that  they  are  so  as  well  with  refer- 
ence to  one  another,  as  to  all  the  world. 

XV.  In  the  same  manner  we  may  understand  how  the  same 
man,  who  is  governor  with  respect  to  one  man  or  set  of  men,  may 
be  subject  with  respect  to  another:  how  among  governors  some 
may  be  in  a  perfect  state  of  nature,  with  respect  to  each  other: 
as  the  KINGS  of  FRANCE  and  SPAIN:  others,  again,  in  a  state  of 
perfect  subjection,  as  the  HOSPODARS  of  WALACHIA  and  MOLDAVIA 
with  respect  to  the  GRAND  SIGNIOR:  others,  again,  in  a  state  of 
manifest  but  imperfect  subjection,  as  the  GERMAN  STATES  with 
respect  to  the  EMPEROR:  others,  again,  in  such  a  state  in  which 
it  may  be  difficult  to  determine  whether  they  are  in  a  state  of 
imperfect  subjection  or  in  a  perfect  state  of  nature:  as  the  KING  of 
NAPLES  with  respect  to  the  POPE. 

XVI.  In  the  same  manner,  also,  it  may  be  conceived,  without 
entering  into  details,  how  any  single  person,  born,  as  all  persons 
are,  into  a  state  of  perfect  subjection  to  his  parents,  that  is  into  a 
state  of  perfect  political  society  with  respect  to  his  parents,  may 
from  thence  pass  into    a   perfect    state   of   nature;    and  from 
thence    successively   into    any   number    of    different   states   of 
political  society  more  or  less  perfect,   by  passing  into  different 
societies. 

XVII.  In  the  same  manner  also  it  may  be  conceived  how,  in 
any  political  society,  the  same  man  may,  with  respect  to  the  same 
individuals,  be,  at  different  periods,  and  on  different  occasions, 
alternately,  in  the  state  of  governor  and  subject:  to-day  concurring, 
perhaps  active,  in  the  business  of  issuing  a  general  command  for 
the  observance  of  the  whole  society,  amongst  the  rest  of  another 
man  in  quality  of  Judge:  to-morrow,  punished,  perhaps,  by  a 
particular  command  of  that  same  Judge  for  not  obeying  the  gen- 
eral command  which  he  himself  (I  mean  the  person  acting  in 
character  of  governor)  had  issued.     I  need  scarce  remind  the 
reader  how  happily  this  alternate  state  of  authority  and  sub- 
mission is  exemplified  among  ourselves. 

XIX.  In  the  same  manner,  also,  it  may  be  conceived,  how  the 
same  set  of  men  considered  among  themselves,  may  at  one  time 
be  in  a  state  of  nature,  at  another  time  in  a  state  of  government. 
For  the  habit  of  obedience,  in  whatever  degree  of  perfection  it  be 
necessary  it  should  subsist  in  order  to  constitute  a  government, 


540  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

may  be  conceived,  it  is  plain,  to  suffer  interruptions.    At  different 
junctures  it  may  take  place  and  cease. 

XX.  Instances  of  this  state  of  things  appear  not  to  be  unfre- 
quent.     The  sort  of  society  that  has  been  observed  to  subsist 
among  the  AMERICAN  INDIANS  may  afford  us  one.    According  to 
the  accounts  we  have  of  those  people,  in  most  of  their  tribes,  if 
not  in  all,  the  habit  we  are  speaking  of  appears  to  be  taken  up 
only  in  time  of  war.     It  ceases  again  in  time  of  peace.     The 
necessity  of  acting  in  concert  against  a  common  enemy,  subjects 
a  whole  tribe  to  the  orders  of  a  common  chief.     On  the  return 
of  peace  each  warrior  resumes  his  pristine  independence. 

XXI.  One  difficulty  there  is  that  still  sticks  by  us.     It  has 
been  started  indeed,  but  not  solved. — This  is  to  find  a  note  of 
distinction, —  a    characteristic   mark,  whereby   to  distinguish  a 
society  in  which  there  is  a  habit  of  obedience,  and  that  at  the 
degree  of  perfection  which  is  necessary  to  constitute  a  state  of 
government,  from  a  society  in  which  there  is  not:  a  mark,  I  mean, 
which  shall  have  a  visible  determinate   commencement;  inso- 
much that  the  instant  of   its  first  appearance  shall  be  distin- 
guishable from  the  last  at  which  it  has  not  as  yet  appeared. 
'Tis  only  by  the  help  of  such  a  mark  that  we  can  be  in  a  condition 
to  determine,  at  any  given  time,  whether  any  given  society  is  in 
a  state  of  government,  or  in  a  state  of  nature.     I  can  find  no  such 
mark,  I  must  confess,  anywhere,  unless  it  be  this;   the  establish- 
ment of  names  of  office:  the  appearance  of  a  certain  man,  or  set 
of  men,  with  a  certain  name,  serving  to  mark  them  out  as  objects 
of  obedience:  such  as  King,  Sachem,  Cacique,  Senator,  Burgo- 
master, and  the  like.     This,  I  think,  may  serve  tolerably  well  to 
distinguish  a  set  of  men  in  a  state  of  political  union  among  them- 
selves from  the  same  set  of  men  not  yet  in  such  a  state. 

XXII.  But  suppose  an  incontestable  political  society,  and 
that  a  large  one,  formed;  and  from  that  a  smaller  body  to  break 
off:  by  this  breach  the  smaller  body  ceases  to  be  in  a  state  of 
political  union  with  respect  to  the  larger:  and  has  thereby  placed 
itself,  with  respect  to  that  larger  body,  in  a  state  of  nature — 
What  means  shall  we  find  of  ascertaining  the  precise  juncture  at 
which  this  change  took  place?    What  shall  be  taken  for  the 
characteristic  mark  in  this  case?     The  appointment,  it  may  be 
said,  of  new  governors  with  new  names.     But  no  such  appoint- 
ment, suppose,  takes  place.     The  subordinate  governors,  from 
whom  alone  the  people  at  large  were  in  use  to  receive  their  com- 
mands under  the  old  government,  are  the  same  from  whom  they 
receive  them  under  the  new  one.     The  habit  of  obedience  which 


BENTHAM  541 

these  subordinate  governors  were  in  with  respect  to  that  single 
person,  we  will  say,  who  was  the  supreme  governor  of  the  whole, 
is  broken  off  insensibly  and  by  degrees.  The  old  names  by  which 
these  subordinate  governors  were  characterized,  while  they  were 
subordinate,  are  continued  now  they  are  supreme.  In  this  case 
it  seems  rather  difficult  to  answer. 

XXIII.  If  an  example  be  required,  we  may  take  that  of  the 
DUTCH  provinces  with  respect  to  SPAIN.     These  provinces  were 
once  branches  of  the  Spanish  monarchy.     They  have  now,  for  a 
long  time,  been  universally  spoken  of  as  independent  states: 
independent  as  well  of  that  of  Spain  as  of  every  other.     They  are 
now  in  a  state  of  nature  with  respect  to  Spain.     They  were  once 
in  a  state  of  political  union  with  respect  to  Spain:  namely,  in  a 
state  of  subjection  to  a  single  governor,  a  King,  who  was  King  of 
Spain.     At  what  precise   juncture  did  the  dissolution  of  this 
political  union  take   place?    At  what   precise  time   did   these 
provinces  cease  to  be  subject  to  the  King  of  Spain?     This,  I 
doubt,  will  be  rather  difficult  to  agree  upon.1 

XXIV.  Suppose  the   defection  to  have  begun,  not  by  entire 
provinces,  as  in  the  instance  just  mentioned,  but  by  a  handful 
of  fugitives,  this  augmented  by  the  accession  of  other  fugitives, 
and  so,  by  degrees,  to  a  body  of  men  too  strong  to  be  reduced, 
the  difficulty  will  be  increased  still  farther.     At  what  precise 
•juncture  was  it  that  ancient  ROME,  or  that  modern  VENICE, 
became  an  independent  state? 

XXV.  In  general  then,  at  what  precise  juncture  is  it,  that 
persons  subject  to  a  government,  become,  by  disobedience,  with 
respect  to  that  government,  in  a  state  of  nature?    When  is  it, 
in  short,  that  a  revolt  shall  be  deemed  to  have  taken  place;  and 
when,  again,  is  it,  that  that  revolt  shall  be  deemed  to  such  a 
degree  successful,  as  to  have  settled  into  independence? 

XXVI.  As  it  is  the  obedience  of  individuals  that  constitutes 
a  state  of  submission,  so  is  it  their  disobedience  that  must  con- 
stitute a  state  of  revolt.     Is  it  then  every  act  of  disobedience  that 
will  do  as  much?     The  affirmative,  certainly,  is  what  can  never  be 
maintained:  for  then  would  there  be  no  such  thing  as  govern- 
ment to  be  found  anywhere.     Here    then  a  distinction   or  two 
obviously   presents  itself.     Disobedience  may  be  distinguished 
into  conscious  or  unconscious:  and  that,  with  respect  as  well  to 
the  law  as  to  the  fact.     Disobedience  that  is  unconscious  with 

1  Upon  recollection,  I  have  some  doubt  whether  this  example  would  be  found 
historically  exact.  If  not,  that  of  the  defection  of  the  Nabobs  of  Hindostan 
may  answer  the  purpose.  My  first  choice  fell  upon  the  former;  supposing  it  to 
be  rather  better  known. 


542  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

respect  to  either,  will  readily,  I  suppose,  be  acknowledged  not 
to  be  a  revolt.  Disobedience  again  that  is  conscious  with  respect 
to  both,  may  be  distinguished  into  secret  and  open;  or,  in  other 
words,  into  fraudulent  and  forcible.*-  Disobedience  that  is  only 
fraudulent,  will  likewise,  I  suppose,  be  readily  acknowledged  not 
to  amount  to  a  revolt. 

XXVII.  The  difficulty  that  will  remain  will  concern  such 
disobedience  only  as  is  both  conscious  (and  that  as  well  with 
respect  to  law  as  fact)  and  forcible.  This  disobedience,  it  should 
seem,  is  to  be  determined  neither  by  numbers  altogether  (that  is,  of 
the  persons  supposed  to  be  disobedient)  nor  by  acts,  nor  by 
intentions:  all  three  may  be  fit  to  be  taken  into  consideration. 
But  having  brought  the  difficulty  to  this  point,  at  this  point  I 
must  be  content  to  leave  it.  To  proceed  any  farther  in  the  en- 
deavor to  solve  it,  would  be  to  enter  into  a  discussion  of  particular 
local  jurisprudence.  It  would  be  entering  upon  the  definition  of 
Treason,  as  distinguished  from  Murder,  Robbery,  Riot,  and  other 
such  crimes,  as,  in  comparison  with  Treason,  are  spoken  of  as 
being  of  a  more  private  nature.  Suppose  the  definition  of 
Treason  settled,  and  the  commission  of  an  act  of  Treason  is,  as 
far  as  regards  the  person  committing  it,  the  characteristic  mark 
we  are  in  search  of. 

2.     Criticism  of  the  Social-contract  Theory.     The  Utilitarian  Basis 
of  Political  Society  2 

XXXVI.  As  to  the  original  contract,  by  turns  embraced  and 
ridiculed  by  our  Author,  a  few  pages,  perhaps,  may  not  be  ill 
bestowed  in  endeavoring  to  come  to  a  precise  notion  about  its 
reality  and  use.     The  stress  laid  on  it   formerly,  and  still,  per- 
haps, by  some,  is  such  as  renders  it  an  object  not  undeserving  of 
attention.     I  was  in  hopes,  however,  till  I  observed  the  notice 
taken  of  it  by  our  Author,  that  this  chimera  had  been  effectually 
demolished  by  Mr.  Hume.     I  think  we  hear  not  so  much  of  it 
now  as  formerly.     The  indestructible  prerogatives  of  mankind 
have  no  need  to  be  supported  upon  the  sandy  foundation  of  a 
fiction. 

XXXVII.  With  respect  to  this,  and  other  fictions,  there  was 

1  If  examples  be  thought  necessary,  Theft  may  serve  for  an  example  of 
fraudulent  disobedience;  Robbery  of  forcible.    In  Theft,  the  person  of  the  dis- 
obedient party,  and  the  act  of  disobedience,  are  both  endeavored  to  be  kept 
secret.    In  Robbery,  the  act  of  disobedience,  at  least,  if  not  the  person  of  him 
who  disobeys,  is  manifest  and  avowed. 

2  Ch.  I,  pars,  xxxvi-xlviii. 


BENTHAM  543 

once  a  time,  perhaps,  when  they  had  their  use.  With  instruments 
of  this  temper,  I  will  not  deny  but  that  some  political  work  may 
have  been  done,  and  that  useful  work,  which,  under  the  then 
circumstances  of  things,  could  hardly  have  been  done  with  any 
other.  But  the  season  of  Fiction  is  now  over:  insomuch,  that 
what  formerly  might  have  been  tolerated  and  countenanced  under 
that  name,  would,  if  now  attempted  to  be  set  on  foot,  be  censured 
and  stigmatized  under  the  harsher  appellations  of  incroachment 
or  imposture.  To  attempt  to  introduce  any  new  one,  would  be 
now  a  crime:  for  which  reason  there  is  much  danger,  without  any 
use,  in  vaunting  and  propagating  such  as  have  been  introduced 
already.  In  point  of  political  discernment,  the  universal  spread 
of  learning  has  raised  mankind  in  a  manner  to  a  level  with  each 
other,  in  comparison  of  what  they  have  been  in  any  former  time: 
nor  is  any  man  now  so  far  elevated  above  his  fellows,  as  that  he 
should  be  indulged  in  the  dangerous  license  of  cheating  them  for 
their  good. 

XXXVIII.  As  to  the  fiction  now  before  us,  in  the  character  of 
an  argumentum  ad  hominem  coming  when  it  did,  and  managed  as 
it  was,  it  succeeded  to  admiration. 

That  compacts,  by  whomsoever  entered  into,  ought  to  be  kept; 
— that  men  are  bound  by  compacts,  are  propositions  which  men, 
without  knowing  or  inquiring  why,  were  disposed  universally 
to  accede  to..  The  observance  of  promises  they  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  see  pretty  constantly  enforced.  They  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  see  kings,  as  well  as  others,  behave  themselves  as  if 
bound  by  them.  This  proposition,  then,  "that  men  are  bound  by 
compacts',"  and  this  other,  "that,  if  one  party  performs  not  his 
part,  the  other  is  released  from  his,"  being  propositions  which  no 
man  disputed,  were  propositions  which  no  man  had  any  call  to 
prove.  In  theory  they  were  assumed  for  axioms:  and  in  practice 
they  were  observed  as  rules.  If,  on  any  occasion,  it  was  thought 
proper  to  make  a  show  of  proving  them,  it  was  rather  for  form's 
sake  than  for  anything  else :  and  that,  rather  in  the  way  of  memento 
or  instruction  to  acquiescing  auditors,  than  in  the  way  of  proof 
against  opponents.  On  such  an  occasion  the  commonplace 
retinue  of  phrases  was  at  hand;  Justice,  Right  Reason  required  it, 
the  Law  of  Nature  commanded  it,  and  so  forth;  all  which  are  but 
so  many  ways  of  intimating  that  a  man  is  firmly  persuaded  of  the 
truth  of  this  or  that  moral  proposition,  though  he  either  thinks  he 
need  not,  or  finds  he  can't,  tell  why.  Men  were  too  obviously 
and  too  generally  interested  in  the  observance  of  these  rules  to 
entertain  doubts  concerning  the  force  of  any  arguments  they  saw 


544  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

employed  in  their  support. — It  is  an  old  observation  how  Interest 
smooths  the  road  to  Faith. 

XXXIX.  A  compact,  then,  it  was  said,  was  made  by  the 
King  and  people :  the  terms  of  it  were  to  this  effect.  The  people, 
on  their  part,  promised  to  the  King  a  general  obedience.  The  King, 
on  his  part,  promised  to  govern  the  people  in  such  a  particular 
manner  always,  as  should  be  subservient  to  their  happiness. 
I  insist  not  on  the  words:  I  undertake  only  for  the  sense;  as  far  as 
an  imaginary  engagement,  so  loosely  and  so  variously  worded 
by  those  who  have  imagined  it,  is  capable  of  any  decided  significa- 
tion. Assuming  then,  as  a  general  rule,  that  promises,  when  made, 
ought  to  be  observed;  and,  as  a  point  of  fact,  that  a  promise  to 
this  effect  in  particular  had  been  made  by  the  party  in  question, 
men  were  more  ready  to  deem  themselves  qualified  to  judge  when 
it  was  such  a  promise  was  broken,  than  to  decide  directly  and 
avowedly  on  the  delicate  question,  when  it  was  that  a  King  acted 
so  far  in  opposition  to  the  happiness  of  his  people,  that  it  were 
better  no  longer  to  obey  him. 

XL.  It  is  manifest,  on  a  very  little  consideration,  that  nothing 
was  gained  by  this  maneuver  after  all:  no  difficulty  removed  by 
it.  It  was  still  necessary,  and  that  as  much  as  ever,  that  the 
question  men  studied  to  avoid  should  be  determined,  in  order  to 
determine  the  question  they  thought  to  substitute  in  its  room. 
It  was  still  necessary  to  determine,  whether  the  King  in  question 
had,  or  had  not  acted  so  far  in  opposition  to  the  happiness  of  his 
people,  that  it  were  better  no  longer  to  obey  him;  in  order  to  de- 
termine, whether  the  promise  he  was  supposed  to  have  made, 
had,  or  had  not  been  broken.  For  what  was  the  supposed  purport 
of  this  promise?  It  was  no  other  than  what  has  just  been  men- 
tioned. 

XLI.  Let  it  be  said,  that  part  at  least  of  this  promise  was  to 
govern  in  subservience  to  Law:  that  hereby  a  more  precise  rule 
was  laid  down  for  his  conduct,  by  means  of  this  supposal  of  a 
promise,  than  that  other  loose  and  general  rule  to  govern  in 
subservience  to  the  happiness  of  his  people :  and  that,  by  this 
means,  it  is  the  letter  of  the  Law  that  forms  the  tenor  of  the  rule. 

Now  true  it  is,  that  the  governing  in  opposition  to  Law,  is  one 
way  of  governing  in  opposition  to  the  happiness  of  the  people: 
the  natural  effect  of  such  a  contempt  of  the  Law  being,  if  not 
actually  to  destroy,  at  least  to  threaten  with  destruction,  all  those 
rights  and  privileges  that  are  founded  on  it:  rights  and  privileges 
on  the  enjoyment  of  which  that  happiness  depends.  But  still  it  is 
not  this  that  can  be  safely  taken  for  the  entire  purport  of  the 


BENTHAM  545 

promise  here  in  question:  and  that  for  several  reasons.  First, 
because  the  most  mischievous,  and  under  certain  constitutions 
the  most  feasible,  method  of  governing  in  opposition  to  the  happi- 
ness of  the  people,  is,  by  setting  the  Law  itself  in  opposition  to  their 
happiness.  Secondly,  because  it  is  a  case  very  conceivable,  that 
a  King  may,  to  a  great  degree,  impair  the  happiness  of  his  people 
without  violating  the  letter  of  any  single  Law.  Thirdly,  because 
extraordinary  occasions  may  now  and  then  occur,  in  which  the 
happiness  of  the  people  may  be  better  promoted  by  acting,  for  the 
moment,  in  opposition  to  the  Law,  than  in  subservience  to  it. 
Fourthly,  because  it  is  not  any  single  violation  of  the  Law,  as  such, 
that  can  properly  be  taken  for  a  breach  of  his  part  of  the  contract, 
so  as  to  be  understood  to  have  released  the  people  from  the 
obligation  of  performing  theirs.  For,  to  quit  the  fiction,  and 
resume  the  language  of  plain  truth,  it  is  scarce  ever  any  single 
violation  of  the  Law  that,  by  being  submitted  to,  can  produce  so 
much  mischief  as  shall  surpass  the  probable  mischief  of  resisting  it. 
If  every  single  instance  whatever  of  such  a  violation  were  to  be 
deemed  an  entire  dissolution  of  the  contract,  a  man  who  reflects 
at  all  would  scarce  find  anywhere,  I  believe,  under  the  sun,  that 
government  which  he  could  allow  to  subsist  for  twenty  years 
together.  It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  to  pass  any  sound  decision 
upon  the  question  which  the  inventors  of  this  fiction  substituted 
instead  of  the  true  one,  the  latter  was  still  necessary  to  be  decided. 
All  they  gained  by  their  contrivance  was  the  convenience  of 
deciding  it  obliquely,  as  it  were,  and  by  a  side  wind — that  is,  in  a 
crude  and  hasty  way,  without  any  direct  and  steady  examination. 
XLII.  But,  after  all,  for  what  reason  is  it,  that  men  ought 
to  keep  their  promises?  The  moment  any  intelligible  reason  is 
given,  it  is  this :  that  it  is  for  the  advantage  of  society  they  should 
keep  them;  and  if  they  do  not,  that,  as  far  as  punishment  will  go, 
they  should  be  made  to  keep  them.  It  is  for  the  advantage  of 
the  whole  number  that  the  promises  of  each  individual  should 
be  kept:  and,  rather  than  they  should  not  be  kept,  that  such 
individuals  as  fail  to  keep  them  should  be  punished.  If  it  be  asked, 
how  this  appears?  the  answer  is  at  hand: — Such  is  the  benefit  to 
gain,  and  mischief  to  avoid,  by  keeping  them,  as  much  more  than 
compensates  the  mischief  of  so  much  punishment  as  is  requisite 
to  oblige  men  to  it.  Whether  the  dependence  of  benefit  and  mis- 
chief (that  is,  of  pleasure  and  pain)  upon  men's  conduct  in  this 
behalf,  be  as  here  stated,  is  a  question  of  fact,  to  be  decided,  in 
the  same  manner  that  all  other  questions  of  fact  are  to  be  decided, 
by  testimony,  observation,  and  experience. 


546  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

s^  XLIII.  This  then,  and  no  other,  being  the  reason  why  men 
1  should  be  made  to  keep  their  promises,  viz.  that  it  is  for  the  ad- 
vantage of  society  that  they  should,  is  a  reason  that  may  as  well 
be  given  at  once,  why^Kings,  on  the  one  hand,  in  governing, 
should  in  general  keep  within  established  Laws,  and  (to  speak  uni- 
versally) abstain  from  all  such  measures  as  tend  to  the  unhappi- 
ness  of  their  subjects:  and,  on  the  other  hand,  why  subjects  should 
obey  Kings  as  long  as  they  so  conduct  themselves,  and  no  longer; 
why  they  should  obey  in  short  so  long  as  the  probable  mischiefs 
of  obedience  are  less  than  the  probable  mischiefs  of  resistance; 
why,  in  a  word,  taking  the  whole  body  together,  it  is  their  duty 
to  obey,  just  so  long  as  it  is  their  interest,  and  no  longer.  This 
being  the  case,  what  need  of  saying  of  the  one,  that  he  PROMISED 
so  to  govern;  of  the  other,  that  they  PROMISED  so  to  obey,  when 
the  fact  is  otherwise?  \ 

XLIV.  True  it  is,  that,  in  this  country,  according  to  ancient 
forms,  some  sort  of  vague  promise  of  good  government  is  made  by 
Kings  at  the  ceremony  of  their  coronation:  and  let  the  acclama- 
tions, perhaps  given,  perhaps  not  given,  by  chance  persons  out 
of  the  surrounding  multitude,  be  construed  into  a  promise  of 
obedience  on  the  part  of  the  whole  multitude :  that  whole  multitude 
itself,  a  small  drop  collected  together  by  chance  out  of  the  ocean 
of  the  state :  and  let  the  two  promises  thus  made  be  deemed  to  have 
formed  a  perfect  compact: — not  that  either  of  them  is  declared  to 
be  the  consideration  of  the  other. 

XLV.  Make  the  most  of  this  concession,  one  experiment 
there  is,  by  which  every  reflecting  man  may  satisfy  himself,  I 
think,  beyond  a  doubt,  that  it  is  the  consideration  of  utility,  and 
no  other,  that,  secretly  but  unavoidably,  has  governed  his  judg- 
ment upon  all  these  matters.  The  experiment  is  easy  and  decisive. 
It  is  but  to  reverse,  in  supposition,  in  the  first  place  the  import  of 
the  particular  promise  thus  feigned;  in  the  next  place,  the  effect 
in  point  of  utility  of  the  observance  of  promises  in  general. — 
Suppose  the  King  to  promise  that  he  would  govern  his  subjects 
not  according  to  Law;  not  in  the  view  to  promote  their  happiness: 
— would  this  be  binding  upon  him?  Suppose  the  people  to  promise 
they  would  obey  him  at  all  events,  let  him  govern  as  he  will;  let 
him  govern  to  their  destruction.  Would  this  be  binding  upon 
them?  Suppose  the  constant  and  universal  effect  of  an  observance 
of  promises  were  to  produce  mischief,  would  it  then  be  men's  duty 
to  observe  them?  Would  it  then  be  right  to  make  Laws,  and  apply 
punishment  to  oblige  men  to  observe  them? 

XLVI.     "No"   (it  may  perhaps  be  replied);   "but  for  this 


BENTHAM  547 

reason;  among  promises,  some  there  are  that,  as  every  one  allows, 
are  void:  now  these  you  have  been  supposing,  are  unquestionably 
of  the  number.  A  promise  that  is  in  itself  void,  cannot,  it  is  true, 
create  any  obligation.  But  allow  the  promise  to  be  valid,  and  it  is 
the  promise  itself  that  creates  the  obligation,  and  nothing  else." 
The  fallacy  of  this  argument  it  is  easy  to  perceive.  For  what  is 
it  then  that  the  promise  depends  on  for  its  validity?  what  is  it  that 
being  present  makes  it  valid?  what  is  it  that  being  wanting  makes 
it  void?  To  acknowledge  that  any  one  promise  may  be  void,  is  to 
acknowledge  that  if  any  other  is  binding,  it  is  not  merely  because 
it  is  a  promise.  That  circumstance  then,  whatever  it  be,  on  which 
the  validity  of  a  promise  depends,  that  circumstance,  I  say,  and 
not  the  promise  itself  must,  it  is  plain,  be  the  cause  of  the  obliga- 
tion on  which  a  promise  is  apt  in  general  to  carry  with  it. 

XLVII.  But  farther.  Allow,  for  argument  sake,  what  we 
have  disproved:  allow  that  the  obligation  of  a  promise  is  inde- 
pendent of  every  other:  allow  that  a  promise  is  binding  proprid  vi 
— Binding  then  on  whom?  On  him  certainly  who  makes  it. 
Admit  this:  for  what  reason  is  the  same  individual  promise  to 
be  binding  on  those  who  never  made  it?  The  King,  fifty  years  ago, 
promised  my  Great-Grandfather  to  govern  him  according  to  Law: 
my  Great-Grandfather,  y£//;y  years  ago,  promised  the  King  to  obey 
him  according  to  Law. .  The  King,  just  now,  promised  my  neigh- 
bor to  govern  him  according  to  Law:  my  neighbor,  just  now, 
promised  the  King  to  obey  him  according  to  Law. — Be  it  so — 
What  are  these  promises,  all  or  any  of  them,  to  me?  To  make 
answer  to  this  question,  some  other  principle,  it  is  manifest,  must 
be  resorted  to,  than  that  of  the  intrinsic  obligation  of  promises 
upon  those  who  make  them.  . 

XLVIII.  Now  this  other  principle  that  still  recurs  upon  us, 
what  other  can  it  be  than  the  principle  of  UTILITY?  The  prin- 
ciple which  furnishes  us  with  that  reason,  which  alone  depends 
not  upon  any  higher  reason,  but  which  is  itself  the  sole  and  all- 
sufficient  reason  for  every  point  of  practice  whatsoever. 

8.    Criticism  of  the  Theory  that  Laws  of  Nature  are  Limitations 
upon  Sovereignty.     The  Character  of  Free  Government  l 

XIX.  The  propriety  of  this  dangerous  maxim,  so  far  as  the 
Divine  Law  is  concerned,  is  what  I  must  refer  to  a  future  occasion 
for  more  particular  consideration.  As  to  the  LAW  of  Nature,  if 
(as  I  trust  it  will  appear)  it  be  nothing  but  a  phrase;  if  there  be  no 

1  Ch.  IV,  pars,  xix-xli;  ch.  V,  pars,  vii-viii. 


548  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

other  medium  for  proving  any  act  to  be  an  offense  against  it, 
than  the  mischievous  tendency  of  such  act;  if  there  be  no  other 
medium  for  proving  a  law  of  the  state  to  be  contrary  to  it,  than  the 
inexpediency  of  such  law,  unless  the  bare  unfounded  disapproba- 
tion of  any  one  who  thinks  of  it  be  called  a  proof;  if  a  test  for 
distinguishing  such  laws  'as  would  be  contrary  to  the  LAW  of  Nature 
from  such  as,  without  being  contrary  to  it,  are  simply  inexpedient, 
be  that  which  neither  our  Author  nor  any  man  else  so  much  as 
pretended  ever  to  give;  if,  in  a  word,  there  be  scarce  any  law  what- 
ever but  what  those  who  have  not  liked  it  have  found,  on  some 
account  or  another,  to  be  repugnant  to  some  text  of  scripture; 
\  I  see  no  remedy  but  that  the  natural  tendency  of  such  doctrine 
is  to  impel  a  man,  by  the  force  of  conscience,  to  rise  up  in  arms 
against  any  law  whatever  that  he  happens  not  to  like.  What 
sort  of  government  it  is  that  can  consist  with  such  a  disposition, 
I  must  leave  to  our  Author  to  inform  us. 

XX.  It  is  the  principle  of  utility,  accurately  apprehended 
and  steadily  applied,  that  affords  the  only  clue  to  guide  a  man 
through  these  straits.     It  is  for  that,  if  any,  and  for  that  alone 
to  furnish  a  decision  which  neither  party  shall  dare  in  theory  to 
disavow.     It  is  something  to  reconcile  men  even  in  theory.     They 
are  at  least,  something  nearer  to  an  effectual  union,  than  when  at 
variance  as  well  in  respect  of  theory  as  of  practice. 

XXI.  In  speaking  of  the  supposed  contract  between  King  and 
people,  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  give  the  description,  and, 
as  it  appears  to  me,  the  only  general  description  that  can  be  given, 
of  that  juncture  at  which,  and  not  before,  resistance  to  government 
becomes  commendable;  or,   in  other  words,  reconcilable  to   just 
notions,  whether  of  legal  or  not,  at  least  of  moral,  and,  if  there  be 
any  difference,  religious  duty.    What  was  there  said  was  spoken, 
at  the  time,  with  reference  to  that  particular  branch  of  govern- 
ment which  was  then  in  question;  the  branch  that  in  this  country 
is  administered  by  the  King.     But  if  it  was  just,  as  applied  to  that 
branch  of  government,  and  in  this  country,  it  could  only  be  for  the 
same  reason  that  it  is  so  when  applied  to  the  whole  of  government, 
and  that  in  any  country  whatsoever.     It  is  then,  we  may  say,  and 
not  till  then,  allowable  to,  if  not  incumbent  on,  every  man,  as_ 
well  on  the  score  of  duty  as  of  interest,  to  enter  into  measures  of 
resistance;  when,  according  to  the  best  calculation  he  is  able  to 
make,  the  probable  mischiefs  of  resistance  (speaking  with  respect 
to  the  community  in  general)  appear  less  to  him  than  the  probable 
mischiefs  of  submission.     This  then  is  to  him,  that  is  to  each  man  in 
particular,  the  juncture  for  resistance. 


BENTHAM 

XXII.  A  natural  question  here  is — by  what  sign  shall  this 
juncture  be  known?     By  what  common  signal  alike  conspicuous 
and  perceptible  to  all?    A  question  which  is  readily  enough  started, 
but  to  which,  I  hope,  it  will  be  almost  as  readily  perceived  that  it  is 
impossible  to  find  an  answer.     Common  sign  for  such  a  purpose, 
I,  for  my  part,  know  of  none:  he  must  be  more  than  a  prophet, 
I  think,  that  can  show  us  one.     For  that  which  shall  serve  a 
particular  person,  I  have  already  given  one — his  own  internal 
persuasion  of  a  balance  of  utility  on  the  side  of  resistance. 

XXIII.  Unless  such  a  sign  then,  which  I  think  impossible, 
can  be  shown,  the  field,  if  one  may  say  so,  of  the  supreme  governor's 
authority,  though  not  infinite,  must  unavoidably,  I  think,  unless 
where  limited  by  express  convention,  be  allowed  to  be  indefinite. 
Nor  can  I  see  any  narrower,  or  other  bounds  to  it,  under  this 
constitution,  or  under  any  other  yet  freer  constitution,  if  there  be 
one,  than  under  the  most  despotic.     Before  the  juncture  I  have  been 
describing  were  arrived,  resistance,  even  in  a  country  like  this, 
would  come  too  soon:  were  the  juncture  arrived  already,  the  time 
for  resistance  would  be  come  already,  under  such  a  government 
even  as  any  one  should  call  despotic. 

XXIV.  In  regard  to  a  government  that  is  free,  and  one  that  is 
despotic,  wherein  is  it  then  that  the  difference  consists?     Is  it 
that  those  persons  in  whose  hands  that  power  is  lodged  which  is 
acknowledged  to  be  supreme,  have  less  power  in  the  one  than  in 
the  other,  when  it  is  from  custom  that  they  derive  it?  By  no  means. 
Is  it  not  that  the  power  of  one  any  more  than  of  the  other  has  any 
certain  bounds  to  it?     The  distinction  turns  upon  circumstances 
of  a  very  different  complexion: — on  the  manner  in  which  that 
whole  mass  of  power,  which,  taken  together,  is  supreme,  is,  in  a 
free  state,  distributed  among  the  several  ranks  of  persons  that  are 
sharers  in  it: — on  the  source  from  whence  their  titles  to  it  are 
successively  derived: — on  the  frequent  and  easy  changes  of  con- 
dition between  governors  and  governed;  whereby  the  interests 
of  the  one  class  are  more  or  less  indistinguishably  blended  with 
those  of  the  other: — on  the  responsibility  of  the  governors;  or  the 
right  which  a  subject  has  of  having  the  reasons  publicly  assigned 
and  canvassed  of  every  act  of  power  that  is  exerted  over  him: — 
on  the  liberty  of  the  press;  or  the  security  with  which  every  man, 
be  he  of  the  one  class  or  the  other,  may  make  known  his  com- 
plaints and  remonstrances  to  the  whole  community: — on  the 
liberty  of  public  association;  or  the  security  with  which  malcon- 
tents may  communicate  their  sentiments,   concert  their  plans, 
and  practice  every  mode  of  opposition  short  of  actual  revolt, 


550  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

before  the  executive  power  can  be  legally  justified  in  disturbing 
them. 

XXV.  True  then,  it  may  be,  that,  owing  to  this  last  circum- 
stance in  particular,  in  a  state  thus  circumstanced,  the  road  to  a 
revolution,  if  a  revolution  be  necessary,  is  to  appearance  shorter; 
certainly  more  smooth  and  easy.     More  likelihood  certainly  there 
is  of  its  being  such  a  revolution  as  shall  be  the  work  of  a  number; 
and  in  which,  therefore,  the  interests  of  a  number  are  likely  to 
be  consulted.     Grant  then,  that  by  reason  of  these  facilitating 
circumstances,  the  juncture  itself  may  arrive  sooner,  and  upon 
less  provocation,  under  what  is  called  a  free  government,  than 
under  what  is  called  an  absolute  one:  grant  this; — yet  till  it  be 
arrived,  resistance  is  as  much  too  soon  under  one  of  them  as  under 
the  other. 

XXVI.  Let  us  avow  then,  in  short,  steadily  but  calmly,  what 
our  Author  hazards  with  anxiety  and  agitation,  that  the  authority 
of  the  supreme  body  cannot,  unless  where  limited  by  express  con- 
vention, be  said  to  have  any  assignable,  any  certain  bounds. — 
That  to  say  there  is  any  act  they  cannot  do, — to  speak  of  any- 
thing of  theirs  as  being  illegal, — as  being  void] — to  speak  of  their 
exceeding  their  authority  (whatever  be  the  phrase) — their  power, 
their  right, — is,  however  common,  an  abuse  of  language. 

XXVII.  The  legislature  cannot  do  it?    The  legislature  cannot 
make  a  law  to  this  effect?    Why  cannot?    What  is  there  that 
should  hinder  them?    Why  not  this,  as  well  as  so  many  other 
laws  murmured  at,  perhaps,  as  inexpedient,  yet  submitted  to 
without  any  question  of  the  right?    With  men  of  the  same  party, 
with  men  whose  affections  are  already  lifted  against  the  law  in 
question,  anything  will  go  down:  any  rubbish  is  good  that  will 
add  fuel  to  the  flame.     But  with  regard  to  an  impartial  bystander, 
it  is  plain  that  it  is  not  denying  the  right  of  the  legislature,  their 
authority,  their  power,  or  whatever  be  the  word — it  is  not  denying 
that  they  can  do  what  is  in  question — it  is  not  that,  I  say,  or  any 
discourse  verging  that  way  than  can  tend  to  give  him  the  smallest 
satisfaction. 

XXVIII.  Grant  even  the  proposition  in  general: — What  are 
we  the  nearer?     Grant  that  there  are  certain  bounds  to  the 
authority  of  the  legislature : — Of  what  use  is  it  to  say  so,  when  these 
bounds  are  what  no  body  has  ever  attempted  to  mark  out  to  any 
useful  purpose;  that  is,  in  any  such  manner  whereby  it  might  be 
known  beforehand  what  description  a  law  must  be  of  to  fall 
within,  and  what  to  fall  beyond  them?     Grant  that  there  are 
things  which  the  legislature  cannot  do; — grant  that  there  are  laws 


BENTHAM  551 

which  exceed  the  power  of  the  legislature  to  establish.  What  rule 
does  this  sort  of  discourse  furnish  us  for  determining  whether  any 
one  that  is  in  question  is,  or  is  not  of  the  number?  As  far  as  I 
can  discover,  none.  Either  the  discourse  goes  on  in  the  confusion 
it  began;  either  all  rests  in  vague  assertions,  and  no  intelligible 
argument  at  all  is  offered ;  or  if  any,  such  arguments  as  are  drawn 
from  the  principle  of  utility:  arguments  which,  in  whatever  variety 
of  words  expressed,  come  at  last  to  neither  more  nor  less  than  this; 
that  the  tendency  of  the  law  is,  to  a  greater  or  a  less  degree, 
pernicious.  If  this  then  be  the  result  of  the  argument,  why  not 
come  home  to  it  at  once?  Why  turn  aside  into  a  wilderness  of 
sophistry,  when  the  path  of  plain  reason  is  straight  before  us? 

XXIX.  What  practical  inferences  those  who  maintain  this 
language  mean  should  be  deduced  from  it,  is  not  altogether  clear; 
nor,  perhaps,  does  every  one  mean  the  same.     Some  who  speak  of 
a  law  as  being  void  (for  to  this  expression,  not  to  travel  through  the 
whole  list,  I  shall  confine  myself)  would  persuade  us  to  look  upon 
the  authors  of  it  as  having  thereby  forfeited,  as  the  phrase  is,  their 
whole  power:  as  well  that  of  giving  force  to  the  particular  law  in 
question,  as  to  any  other.     These  are  they  who,  had  they  arrived 
at  the  same  practical  conclusion  through  the  principle  of  utility, 
would  have  spoken  of  the  law  as  being  to  such  a  degree  pernicious, 
as  that,  were  the  bulk  of  the  community  to  see  it  in  its  true  light, 
the  probable  mischief  of  resisting  it  would  be  less  than  the  probable 
mischief  of  submitting  to  it.     These  point,  in  the  first  instance,  at 
hostile  opposition. 

XXX.  Those  who  say  nothing  about  forfeiture  are  commonly 
less  violent  in  their  views.     These  are  they  who,  were  they  to 
ground  themselves  on  the  principle  of  utility,  and,  to  use  our 
language,  would  have  spoken  of  the  law  as  being  mischievous 
indeed,  but  without  speaking  of  it  as  being  mischievous  to  the 
degree  that  has  been  just  mentioned.     The  mode  of  opposition 
which  they  point  to  is  one  which  passes  under  the  appellation  of 
a  legal  one. 

XXXI.  Admit  then  the  law  to  be  void  in  their  sense,  and 
mark  the  consequences.     The  idea  annexed  to  the  epithet  void 
is  obtained  from  those  instances  in  which  we  see  it  applied  to  a 
private  instrument.     The  consequence  of  a  private  instrument's 
being  void  is,  that  all  persons  concerned  are  to  act  as  if  no  such 
instrument  had  existed.     The  consequence,  accordingly,  of  a  law's 
being  void  must  be>  that  people  shall  act  as  if  there  were  no  such 
law  about  the  matter :  and  therefore  that  if  any  person  in  virtue  of 
the  mandate  of  the  law  should  do  anything  in  coercion  of  another 


552  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

person,  which  without  such  law  he  would  be  punishable  for 
doing,  he  would  still  be  punishable;  to  wit,  by  appointment  of  the 
judicial  power.  Let  the  law,  for  instance,  be  a  law  imposing  a  tax : 
a  man  who  should  go  about  to  levy  the  tax  by  force  would  be 
punishable  as  a  trespasser:  should  he  chance  to  be  killed  in  the 
attempt,  the  person  killing  him  would  not  be  punishable  as  for 
murder:  should  he  kill,  he  himself  would,  perhaps,  be  punishable 
as  for  murder.  To  whose  office  does  it  appertain  to  do  those  acts 
in  virtue  of  which  such  punishment  would  be  inflicted?  To  that 
of  the  Judges.  Applied  to  practice  then,  the  effect  of  this  lan- 
guage is,  by  an  appeal  made  to  the  Judges,  to  confer  on  those 
magistrates  a  controlling  power  over  the  acts  of  the  legislature. 

XXXII.  By  this  management  a   particular   purpose  might 
perhaps,  by  chance  be  answered:  and  let  this  be  supposed  a  good 
one.     Still  what  benefit  would,  from  the  general  tendency  of  such 
a  doctrine,  and  such  a  practice  in  conformity  to  it,  accrue  to  the 
body  of  the  people  is  more  than  I  can  conceive.     A  Parliament, 
let  it  be  supposed,  is  too  much  under  the  influence  of  the  Crown: 
pays  too  little  regard  to  the  sentiments  and  the  interests  of  the 
people.     Be  it  so.     The  people  at  any  rate,  if  not  so  great  a  share 
as  they  might  and  ought  to  have,  have  had,  at  least,  some  share 
in  choosing  it.     Give  to  the  Judges  a  power  of  annulling  its  acts; 
and  you  transfer  a  portion  of  the  supreme  power  from  an  assembly 
which  the  people  have  had  some  share,  at  least,  in  choosing,  to  a 
set  of  men  in  the  choice  of  whom  they  have  not  the  least  imaginable 
share:  to  a  set  of  men  appointed  solely  by  the  Crown:  appointed 
solely,  and  avowedly  and  constantly,  by  that  very  magistrate  whose 
partial  and  occasional  influence  is  the  very  grievance  you  seek  to 
remedy. 

XXXIII.  In  the  heat  of  debate,  some,  perhaps,  would  be  for 
saying  of  this  management  that  it  was  transferring  at  once  the 
supreme  authority  from  the  legislative  power  to  the  judicial. 
But  this  would  be  going  too  far  on  the  other  side.     There  is  a 
wide  difference  between  a  positive  and  a  negative  part  in  legislation. 
There  is  a  wide  difference  again  between  a  negative  upon  reasons 
given,  and  a  negative  without  any.     The  power  of  repealing  a 
law  even  for  reasons  given  is  a  great  power:  too  great  indeed  for 
Judges:  but  still  very  distinguishable  from,  and  much  inferior  to 
that  of  making  one.1 

1  Notwithstanding  what  has  been  said,  it  would  be  in  vain  to  dissemble,  but 
that,  upon  occasion,  an  appeal  of  this  sort  may  very  well  answer,  and  has, 
indeed,  in  general,  a  tendency  to  answer,  in  some  sort,  the  purposes  of  those 
who  espouse,  or  profess  to  espouse,  the  interests  of  the  people.  A  public  and 
authorized  debate  on  the  propriety  of  the  law  is  by  this  means  brought  on.  The 


BENTHAM  553 

XXXIV.  Let  us  now  go  back  a  little.     In  denying  the  exist- 
ence of  any  assignable  bounds  to  the  supreme  power,  I  added, 
"unless  where  limited  by  express  convention:"  for  this  exception 
I  could  not  but  subjoin.     Our  Author  indeed,  in  that  passage  in 
which,  short  as  it  is,  he  is  the  most  explicit,  leaves,  we  may  observe, 
no  room  for  it.     "  However  they  began,"  says  he  (speaking  of 
the  several  forms  of  government),  " however  they  began,  and  by 
what  right  soever  they  subsist,  there  is  and  must  be  in  ALL  of 
them  an  authority  that  is  absolute." — To  say  this,  however,  of 
all  governments  without  exception; — to  say  that  no  assemblage  of 
men  can  subsist  in  a  state  of  government,  without  being  subject  to 
some  one  body  whose  authority  stands  unlimited  so  much  as  by 
convention;  to  say,  in  short,  that  not  even  by  convention  can  any 
limitation  be  made  to  the  power  of  that  body  in  a  state  which  in 
other  respects  is  supreme,  would  be  saying,  I  take  it,  rather  too 
much:  it  would  be  saying  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  govern- 
ment in  the  German  Empire;  nor  in  the  Dutch  Provinces;  nor  in 
the  Swiss  Cantons;  nor  was  of  old  in  the  Achaean  league. 

XXXV.  In  this  mode  of  limitation  I  see  not  what  there  is  that 
need  surprise  us.    By  what  is  it  that  any  degree  of  power  (meaning 
political  power)  is  established?    It  is  neither  more  nor  less,  as  we 
have  already  had  occasion  to  observe,  than  a  habit  of,  and  disposi- 
tion to,  obedience:  habit,  speaking  with  respect  to  past  acts;  disposi- 
tion, with  respect  to  future.     This  disposition  it  is  as  easy,  or  I  am 
much  mistaken,  to  conceive  as  being  absent  with  regard  to  one  sort 
of  acts;  as  present  with  regard  to  other.     For  a  body  then,  which 
is  in  other  respects  supreme,  to  be  conceived  as  being  with  respect 
to  a  certain  sort  of  acts,  limited,  all  that  is  necessary  is  that  this 
sort  of  acts  be  in  its  description  distinguishable  from  every  other. 

XXXVI.  By  means  of  a  convention  then  we  are  furnished 
with  that  common  signal  which,  in  other  cases,  we  despaired  of 
finding.     A  certain  act  is  in  the  instrument  of  convention  specified, 
with  respect  to  which  the  government  is  therein  precluded  from 
issuing  a  law  to  a  certain  effect:  whether  to  the  effect  of  com- 
manding the  act,  of  permitting  it,  or  of  forbidding  it.     A  law  is 
issued  to  that  effect  notwithstanding.     The  issuing  then  of  such 
a  law  (the  sense  of  it,  and  likewise  the  sense  of  that  part  of  the 
convention  which  provides  against  it  being  supposed  clear)  is  a 
fact  notorious  and  visible  to  all:  in  the  issuing  then  of  such  a  law 

artillery  of  the  tongue  is  played  off  against  the  law,  under  cover  of  the  law 
itself.  An  opportunity  is  gained  of  impressing  sentiments  unfavorable  to  it, 
upon  a  numerous  and  attentive  audience.  As  to  any  other  effects  from  such  an 
appeal,  let  us  believe  that  in  the  instances  in  which  we  have  seen  it  made,  it  is 
the  certainty  of  miscarriage  that  has  been  the  encouragement  to  the  attempt. 


554  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

we  have  a  fact  which  is  capable  of  being  taken  for  that  common 
signal  we  have  been  speaking  of.  These  bounds  the  supreme 
body  in  question  has  marked  out  to  its  authority:  of  such  a  de- 
marcation then  what  is  the  effect?  either  none  at  all,  or  this: 
that  the  disposition  to  obedience  confines  itself  within  these 
bounds.  Beyond  them  the  disposition  is  stopped  from  extending: 
beyond  them  the  subject  is  no  more  prepared  to  obey  the  govern- 
ing body  of  his  own  state  than  that  of  any  other.  What  difficulty, 
I  say,  there  should  be  in  conceiving  a  state  of  things  to  subsist 
in  which  the  supreme  authority  is  thus  limited, — what  greater 
difficulty  in  conceiving  it  with  this  limitation,  than  without  any, 
I  cannot  see.  The  two  states  are,  I  must  confess,  to  me  alike 
conceivable:  whether  alike  expedient, — alike  conducive  to  the 
happiness  of  the  people,  is  another  question. 

XXXVII.  God  forbid,  that  from  anything  here  said  it  should 
be  concluded  that  in  any  society  any  convention  is  or  can  be  made, 
which  shall  have  the  effect  of  setting  up  an  insuperable  bar  to 
that  which  the  parties  affected  shall  deem  a  reformation: — God 
forbid  that  any  disease  in  the  constitution  of  a  state  should  be 
without  its  remedy.  Such  might  by  some  be  thought  to  be  the 
case,  where  that  supreme  body  which  in  such  a  convention 
was  one  of  the  contracting  parties,  having  incorporated  itself 
with  that  which  was  the  other,  no  longer  subsists  to  give  any  new 
modification  to  the  engagement.  Many  ways  might  however  be 
found  to  make  the  requisite  alteration,  without  any  departure 
from  the  spirit  of  the  engagement.  Although  that  body  itself 
which  contracted  the  engagement  be  no  more,  a  larger  body,  from 
whence  the  first  is  understood  to  have  derived  its  title,  may  still 
subsist.  Let  this  larger  body  be  consulted.  Various  are  the  ways 
that  might  be  conceived  of  doing  this,  and  that  without  any  dis- 
paragement to  the  dignity  of  the  subsisting  legislature:  of  doing 
it,  I  mean  to  such  effect,  as  that,  should  the  sense  of  such  larger 
body  be  favorable  to  the  alteration,  it  may  be  made  by  a  law, 
which,  in  this  case,  neither  ought  to  be,  nor  probably  would  be, 
regarded  by  the  body  of  the  people  as  a  breach  of  the  convention.1 

1  In  Great  Britain,  for  instance,  suppose  it  were  deemed  necessary  to  make  an 
alteration  in  the  Act  of  Union.  If  in  an  article  stipulated  in  favor  of  England, 
there  need  be  no  difficulty;  so  that  there  were  a  majority  for  the  alteration 
among  the  English  members,  without  reckoning  the  Scotch.  The  only  diffi- 
culty would  be  with  respect  to  an  article  stipulated  in  favor  of  Scotland;  on 
account,  to  wit,  of  the  small  number  of  the  Scotch  members,  in  comparison 
with  the  English.  In  such  a  case,  it  would  be  highly  expedient,  to  say  no  more, 
for  the  sake  of  preserving  the  public  faith,  and  to  avoid  irritating  the  body  of 
the  nation,  to  take  some  method  for  making  the  establishment  of  the  new  law, 
depend  upon  their  sentiments.  One  such  method  might  be  as  follows.  Let  the 


BENTHAM  555 

XXXVIII.  To  return  for  a  moment  to  the  language  used  by 
those  who  speak  of  the  supreme  power  as  being  limited  in  its  own 
nature.     One  thing  I  would  wish  to  have  remembered.     What  is 
here  said  of  the  impropriety  and  evil  influence  of  that  kind  of  dis- 
course, is  not  intended  to  convey  the  smallest  censure  on  those  who 
use  it,  as  if  intentionally  accessory  to  the  ill  effects  it  has  a  ten- 
dency to  produce.   It  is  rather  a  misfortune  in  the  language,  than  a 
fault  of  any  person  in  particular.     The  original  of  it  is  lost  in  the 
darkness  of  antiquity.     We  inherited  it  from  our  fathers,  and, 
mauger  all  its  inconveniencies,  are  likely,  I  doubt,  to  transmit  it  to 
our  children. 

XXXIX.  I  cannot  look  upon  this  as  a  mere  dispute  of  words. 
I  cannot  help  persuading  myself,  that  the  disputes  between  con- 
tending parties — between  the  defenders  of  a  law  and  the  opposers 
of  it,  would  stand  a  much  better  chance  of  being  adjusted  than 
at  present,  were  they  but  explicitly  and  constantly  referred  at  once 
to  the  principle  of  UTILITY.     The  footing  on  which  this  principle 
rests  every  dispute,  is  that  of  matter  of  fact;  that  is,  future  fact 
— the   probability   of   certain   future    contingencies.     Were   the 
debate  then  conducted  under  the  auspices  of  this  principle,  one 
of  two  things  would  happen :  either  men  would  come  to  an  agree- 
ment concerning  that  probability,  or  they  would  see  at  length, 
after  due  discussion  of  the  real  grounds  of  the  dispute,  that  no 
agreement  was  to  be  hoped  for.     They  would  at  any  rate  see 
clearly  and  explicitly  the  point  on  which  the  disagreement  turned. 
The  discontented  party  would  then  take  their  resolution  to  resist 
or  to  submit,  upon  just  grounds,  according  as  it  should  appear 
to  them  worth  their  while — according  to  what  should  appear 
to  them  the  importance  of   the  matter  in  dispute  —  according 
to  what  should  appear  to  them  the  probability  or  improbability 
of  success — according,  in  short,   as   the   mischiefs   of  submission 
should  appear  to  bear  a  less   or  a  greater  ratio  to  the  mischiefs  of 

new  law  in  question  be  enacted  in  the  common  form.  But  let  its  commence- 
ment be  deferred  to  a  distant  period,  suppose  a  year  or  two:  let  it  then,  at 
the  end  of  that  period,  be  in  force,  unless  petitioned  against,  by  persons  of  such 
a  description,  and  in  such  a  number  as  might  be  supposed  fairly  to  represent 
the  sentiments  of  the  people  in  general:  persons,  for  instance,  of  the  description 
of  those  who  at  the  time  of  the  Union,  constituted  the  body  of  electors.  To 
put  the  validity  of  the  law  out  of  dispute,  it  would  be  necessary  the  fact  upon 
which  it  was  made  ultimately  to  depend,  should  be  in  its  nature  too  notorious 
to  be  controverted.  To  determine,  therefore,  whether  the  conditions  upon 
which  the  invalidation  of  it  was  made  to  depend,  had  been  complied  with,  is 
what  must  be  left  to  the  simple  declaration  of  some  person  or  persons;  for  in- 
stance the  King.  I  offer  this  only  as  a  general  idea:  and  as  one  among  many 
that  perhaps  might  be  offered  in  the  same  view.  It  will  not  be  expected  that  I 
should  here  answer  objections,  or  enter  into  details. 


556  READINGS  IN  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

resistance.  But  the  door  to  reconcilement  would  be  much  more 
open,  when  they  saw  that  it  might  be  not  a  mere  affair  of  passion, 
but  a  difference  of  judgment,  and  that,  for  anything  they  could 
know  to  the  contrary,  a  sincere  one,  that  was  the  ground  of 
quarrel. 

XL.  All  else  is  but  womanish  scolding  and  childish  alterca- 
tion, which  is  sure  to  irritate,  and  which  never  can  persuade. — "/ 
say,  the  legislature  cannot  do  this — 7  say,  that  it  can.  I  say,  that 
to  do  this,  exceeds  the  bounds  of  its  authority — /  say,  it  does  not." — 
It  is  evident,  that  a  pair  of  disputants  setting  out  in  this  manner, 
may  go  on  irritating  and  perplexing  one  another  for  everlasting, 
without  the  smallest  chance  of  ever  coming  to  an  agreement. 
It  is  no  more  than  announcing,  and  that  in  an  obscure  and  at  the 
same  time,  a  peremptory  and  captious  manner,  their  opposite 
persuasions,  or  rather  affections,  on  a  question  of  which  neither 
of  them  sets  himself  to  discuss  the  grounds.  The  question  of 
utility,  all  this  while,  most  probably,  is  never  so  much  as  at  all 
brought  upon  the  carpet:  if  it  be,  the  language  in  which  it  is  dis- 
cussed is  sure  to  be  warped  and  clouded  to  make  it  match  with 
the  obscure  and  entangled  pattern  we  have  seen. 

XLI.  On  the  other  hand,  had  the  debate  been  originally  and 
avowedly  instituted  on  the  footing  of  utility,  the  parties  might 
at  length  have  come  to  an  agreement;  or  at  least  to  a  visible 
and  explicit  issue. — "7  say,  that  the  mischiefs  of  the  measure  in 
question  are  to  such  an  amount. — 7  say,  not  so,  but  to  a  less. — 7 
say,  the  benefits  of  it  are  only  to  such  an  amount. — 7  say,  not  so, 
but  to  a  greater." — This,  we  see,  is  a  ground  of  controversy  very 
different  from  the  former.  The  question  is  now  manifestly  a 
question  of  conjecture  concerning  so  many  future  contingent 
matters  of  fact :  to  solve  it,  both  parties  then  are  naturally  directed 
to  support  their  respective  persuasions  by  the  only  evidence  the 
nature  of  the  case  admits  of; — the  evidence  of  such  past  matters 
of  fact  as  appear  to  be  analogous  to  those  contingent  future  ones. 
Now  these  past  facts  are  almost  always  numerous:  so  numerous, 
that  till  brought  into  view  for  the  purpose  of  the  debate,  a  great 
proportion  of  them  are  what  may  very  fairly  have  escaped  the 
observation  of  one  of  the  parties:  and  it  is  owing,  perhaps,  to 
this  and  nothing  else,  that  that  party  is  of  the  persuasion  which 
sets  it  at  variance  with  the  other.  Here,  then,  we  have  a  plain 
and  open  road,  perhaps,  to  present  reconcilement:  at  the  worst  to 
an  intelligible  and  explicit  issue, — that  is,  to  such  a  ground  of 
difference  as  may,  when  thoroughly  trodden  and  explored,  be 
found  to  lead  on  to  reconcilement  at  the  last.  Men,  let  them  but 


BENTHAM  557 

once  clearly  understand  one  another,  will  not  be  long  ere  they 
agree.  It  is  the  perplexity  of  ambiguous  and  sophistical  discourse 
that,  while  it  distracts  and  eludes  the  apprehension,  stimulates 
and  inflames  the  passions. 

VII.1  I  understand,  I  think,  pretty  well,  what  is  meant  by 
the  word  duty  (political  duty)  when  applied  to  myself;  and  I 
could  not  persuade  myself,  I  think,  to  apply  it  in  the  same  sense 
in  a  regular  didactic  discourse  to  those  whom  I  am  speaking  of  as 
my  supreme  governors.  That  is  my  duty  to  do,  which  I  am  liable 
to  be  punished,  according  to  law,  if  I  do  not  do:  this  is  the  original, 
ordinary,  and  proper  sense  of  the  word  duty.  Have  these  supreme 
governors  any  such  duty?  No:  for  if  they  are  at  all  liable  to 
punishment  according  to  law,  whether  it  be  for  not  doing  any- 
thing, or  for  doing,  they  are  not,  what  they  are  supposed  to  be, 
supreme  governors:  those  are  the  supreme  governors,  by  whose 
appointment  the  former  are  liable  to  be  punished. 

VIII.  The  word  duty,  then,  if  applied  to  persons  spoken  of  as 
supreme  governors,  is  evidently  applied  to  them  in  a  sense  which 
is  figurative  and  improper:  nor  therefore  are  the  same  conclusions 
to  be  drawn  from  any  propositions  in  which  it  is  used  in  this  sense, 
as  might  be  drawn  from  them  if  it  were  used  in  the  other  sense, 
which  is  its  proper  one. 

SELECTED  REFERENCES 
Life: 

McDonnell,  John,  "Jeremy  Bentham,"  in  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 
Montague,  Bentham1  s  Fragment  on  Government,  "Introduction,"  pp.  1-21. 

Exposition  and  Criticism: 

Mill,  Dissertations  and  Discussions,  Political,  Philosophical  and  Historical, 

Vol.  I,  pp.  355-4I7. 

Stephen,  The  English  Utilitarianism,  Vol.  I,  chs.  v-vi. 
Maccunn,  Six  Radical  Thinkers,  ch.  i. 
Montague,  op.  cit.,  pp.  21-90. 
Graham,  English  Political  Philosophy,  pp.  174-270. 
Pollock,  History  of  the  Science  of  Politics,  pp.  98-111. 
Dicey,  Law  and  Public  Opinion  in  England  during  the  Nineteenth  Century, 

pp.  125-209. 

1From  ch.  v. 


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Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques.  The  Social  Contract,  or  Principles  of  Political 
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Vindiciae  contra  Tyrannos.  In  a  volume  entitled:  Nicolai  Machiavelli 
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H.    CRITICAL  AND  HISTORICAL  WORKS 

^   Armstrong,  E.     "The  Political  Theory  of  the  Huguenots,"  in  English  His- 
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Baudrillart,  Henri  J.  L.  J.  Bodin  et  son  temps.  Tableaux  des  theories 
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Baumann,  J.  J.  Die  Staatslehre  des  h.  Thomas  von  Aquino.  Leipzig, 
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Blakesley,  Joseph  Williams.  A  Life  of  Aristotle,  including  a  Critical  Dis- 
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Bluntschli,  Johann  Kaspar.  Geschichte  der  neueren  Staatswissenschaft, 
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Bosanquet,  Bernard.  A  Companion  to  Plato's  Republic  for  English  Readers, 
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Bradley,  Andrew  Cecil.  Aristotle's  Conception  of  the  State,  in  Hellenica 
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Hallam,  Henry.  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  Europe  in  the  Fifteenth, 
Sixteenth,  and  Seventeenth  Centuries.  5th  ed.  3  vols.  London,  1873. 

Hancke,  E.  Bodin,  eine  Studie  uber  den  Begriff  der  Soverainetat.  In 
Untersuchen  zur  Deutschen  Staats-  und  Rechtsgeschichte.  47  Heft. 
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Hellenica.  A  Collection  of  Essays  on  Greek  Poetry,  Philosophy,  History 
and  Religion,  edited  by  Evelyn  Abbott.  2d  ed.  New  York,  1898. 

Henkel,  Hermann.  Studien  zur  Geschichte  der  griechischen  Lehre  vom 
Staat.  Leipzig,  1872. 

Holland,  Thomas  Erskine.     Studies  in  International  Law.     Oxford,  1898. 

Janet,  Paul.  Histoire  de  la  science  politique  dans  ses  rapports  avec  la  morale. 
2  toms.  3me  e"d.  Paris,  1887. 

Jourdain,  Charles.  La  Philosophic  de  Saint  Thomas  d'Aquin.  2  toms. 
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*    Kampschulte,  F.  W.    Johann  Calvin,  seine  Kirche  und  sein  Staat  in  Genf. 
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from  his  Philosophy  of  the  Greeks,  by  B.  F.  C.  Costelloe  and  J.  H.  Muir- 
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INDEX 


INDEX 


Agrarian,  Equal :    Harrington,  374  ff . 


450-2;  457-8- 
Aristotle :  on  the  end  of  the  state,  55 ; 
on  the  elements  of  the  state,  55-8; 
on  slavery,  58-60;  on  the  purpose 
of  the  state,  60-1 ;  the  definition  of 
citizenship,  61-3;  on  the  nature  of 
sovereignty,  64-5 ;  on  the  location 
of  sovereignty,  65-71;  the  defini- 
tion of  a  constitution,  71;  on  the 
different  forms  of  state,  71  ff;  on 
the  true  distinction  between  de- 
mocracy and  oligarchy,  73-4;  on 
royalty,  74;  on  the  supremacy  of 
laws,  76-9;  on  the  relation  of 
form  of  government  to  particular 
circumstances,  80- 1 ;  on  polity  and 
mixed  government,  81  ff;  on  aris- 
tocracy, 82,  84;  on  the  relativity  of 
forms  of  government,  83-4;  on 
government  by  the  middle  class, 
84-7;  on  democracy,  87-9;  on  the 
deliberative  organ  of  government, 
89-92 ;  on  the  appointment  •  of 
officers,  92-3;  on  the  judicial 
part  of  government,  93-4;  on 
population  and  territory  of  the 
ideal  state,  94-6;  on  equality  and 
inequality  as  causes  of  revolution, 
96-8;  on  other  causes  of  revolu- 
tion, 98^-9;  on  the  preservation  of 
proportionate  equality  as  a  pre- 
ventive of  revolution,  99—101;  on 
education  as  a  preventive  of  revo- 
lution, IOI-2. 

Balance  of  government:    Harrington, 

359  ff- 

Bentham:  definition  of  natural  soci- 
ety and  of  political  society,  536- 
42 ;  criticism  of  the  social-contract 
theory,  542-5;  on  utility  as  the 
basis  of  political  obligation,  545-7 ; 
criticism  of  the  theory  of  laws  of 
nature  as  limitations  upon  sover- 
eignty, 547  ff ;  on  free  government, 


549-53;  on  conventions  as  limita- 
tions upon  sovereignty,  553-5;  on 
the  principle  of  utility  as  a  limit 
upon  sovereignty,  555-7 ;  on  polit- 
ical duty,  557. 

Bodin:  the  definition  of  a  state, 
226^-7;  definition  of  citizen,  227  ff; 
criticism  of  Aristotle's  definition  of 
citizen,  228-9;  definition  of  sover- 
eignty, 230-1;  on  the  limits  of 
sovereignty,  231  ff ;  on  the  law  of 
nations,  234-5 ;  on  the  power  of  the 
sovereign  in  the  giving  of  laws, 
235-6;  on  the  other  functions  of 
sovereignty,  236. 

Calvin:  on  the  necessity  of  civil  gov- 
ernment, 191-4;  on  the  duties  of 
civil  magistrates,  194-5;  on  the 
limits  of  obedience  due  to  civil 
magistrates,  195-201. 

Checks  and  balances:  Polybius,  113- 
7;  Harrington,  369-73;  Montes- 
quieu, 464-74- 

Citizens:  Aristotle,  61-3;  Marsiglio, 
163  ff;  Bodin,  227-9. 

CiviTrights:  Milton,  295-7;  Paine, 
521-2. 

Classes  in  the  state:    Plato,  18-25. 

Communism:    Plato,  26-35. 

Conscience,  Freedom  of:  Milton, 
294— 5. 

Consent  of  the  governed:  Marsiglio, 
164-5;  Locke,  396  ff. 

Constitution:    Aristotle,  71,  80. 

Constitutional  government:  Aristotle, 
82  ff. 

Contract  theory  of  government :  Vin- 
dicia,  213  ff;  criticized  by  Rous- 
seau, 509  ff.  See  also  Social  con- 
tract. 

Dante:  on  the  ends  of  civil  govern- 
ment, 140-4;  on  the  advantages 
of  a  temporal  monarchy,  144-5; 
the  argument  for  a  universal  mon- 
archy, 146-50;  on  the  direct  sanc- 
tion of  temporal  monarchy  by 
God,  150-3;  on  the  relations  be- 


569 


570 


INDEX 


tween  secular  and  ecclesiastical 
authority,  153-5- 

Democracy:  Aristotle,  73,  80  ff,  87- 
9;  Polybius,  112-3;  Montesquieu, 
446-50,  455-7;  Paine,  531-2.  See 
also  Popular  sovereignty;  Repub- 
lican government. 

Despotism:  Montesquieu,  454-5,  460- 
2.  See  also  Tyranny. 

Divine  basis  of  temporal  authority: 
Dante,  150-5. 

Division  of  labor:    Plato,  4  ff. 

Economic  conditions,  Political  influ- 
ence of:  Aristotle,  83  ff ;  Harring- 
ton* 359  ff- 

Education  as  a  function  of  the  state: 
Plato,  44  ff;  Aristotle,  101-2. 

Ends  (purposes)  of  the  state:  Aris- 
totle, 55,  57,  60-1,  71-2;  Thomas 
Aquinas,  133-5;  Dante,  140-4; 
Marsiglio,  160-2;  Calvin,  191-5; 
Vindicia,  208  ff;  Hooker,  242-6; 
Hobbes,  316-9;  Locke,  402  ff; 
Rousseau,  484-6;  Paine,  522  ff, 
528  ff;  Bentham,  546  ff. 

Equality:  Aristotle,  68-70,  96-8, 
99-101 ;  Hobbes,  302-4;  Rousseau, 
492-4;  Paine,  519-21. 

Executive,  distinguished  from  legis- 
lator: Marsiglio,  165-7. 

Forms    of    government:      Aristotle, 

71-89;  Polybius,  106-13;  Thomas 

Aquinas,  132-3;  Hobbes,  327-31; 

Harrington,  358  ff;  Locke,  405-6; 

Montesquieu,  446-63;  Rousseau, 

500  ff. 
Free    government:      Milton,    291-7; 

Bentham,  547  ff. 
Functions  of  government:    See  Ends 

of  the  state,  and  Sovereignty. 

Government,  General  principles  of: 
Plato,  11-17,  19,  26,  35;  Aristotle, 
79  ff;  Harrington,  355  ff,  357; 
Montesquieu,  446  ff;  Rousseau, 
496  ff;  departments  of:  Aristotle, 
89-94;  Polybius,  113  ff;  Marsiglio, 
165-7;  Harrington,  369  ff;  Locke, 
411  ff;  Montesquieu,  464  ff;  con- 
duct of:  Machiavelli,  173  ff;  sub- 
ordination of  to  the  state:  Rous- 
seau, 504  ff.  See  also  Forms  of 
government,  Origin  of  the  state, 
etc. 

Grotius:  on  the  natural  basis  of  jus- 
tice, 260  ff ;  on  the  divine  origin  of 
law,  262-3;  criticism  of  the  doc- 


trine of  utility  as  the  basis  of  law, 
263;  on  the  grounds  of  the  law  of 
nations,  263  ff;  on  the  law  of  na- 
ture, 266-8;  definition  of  state, 
269;  definition  of  sovereignty,  269- 
70;  criticism  of  the  doctrine  of 
popular  sovereignty,  270-2  ;  on  the 
title  to  sovereignty,  273-4;  on  the 
limits  of  sovereignty,  274-5;  on 
the  division  of  sovereignty,  275-6. 

Harrington:  on  the  nature  and  kinds 
of  civil  government,  357-8;  on  the 
principles  of  government,  358  ff; 
on  the  distinction  between  domes- 
tic and  foreign  empire,  359  ;  on  the 
relation  between  government  and 
land-ownership,  359-65;  on  the 
supremacy  of  reason  and  law  in 
government,  365-9;  on  the  pro- 
posing, resolving,  and  executing 
organs  of  government,  369-73  ;  on 
an  "equal  commonwealth,"  373 
ff;  on  an  "equal  agrarian"  and 
"equal  rotation,"  374-8. 

Hobbes:  on  the  natural  equality  of 
men,  302-4;  on  the  war  of  all 
against  all  in  the  state  of  nature, 
304-6;  on  the  absence  of  justice  in 
the  state  of  nature,  306;  on  the 
laws  of  nature,  307-16;  on  the 
origin  and  purpose  of  political 
society,  316-20;  on  the  incom- 
municable rights  of  sovereignty, 
320-5;  on  the  further  attributes 
of  sovereignty,  325-7;  on  forms  of 
state,  327  ff  ;  on  the  advantages  of 
monarchy,  328-31;  on  the  liberty 
of  subjects,  331  ;  on  civil  laws,  340 
ff;  on  the  superiority  of  the  sover- 
eign to  laws,  341-4;  on  the  publi- 
cation of  laws,  344-7  ;  on  the  inter- 
pretation of  laws,  347-52. 

Hooker:  on  the  origin  and  purpose"of 
political  society,  242  ff;  on  the 
basis  of  government  in  consent, 
245-6;  on  the  nature  of  laws,  246 
ff  ;  on  the  source  of  laws,  248  ff;  on 
human  laws,  250-1  ;  on  the  law  of 
nations,  251-3. 


Ideal  state:    Aristotle, 
International  law:     Grotius,  259  ff. 
See  also  Law  of  nations. 

Jus  Gentium:   see  Law  of  Nations. 
Justice:    Plato,  3-4,  8-9,  23-6;  Gro- 
tius, 260;  Hobbes,  306,  308,  311-4. 


INDEX 


571 


Land-ownership  as  a  principle  of 
political  power:  Harrington,  359- 
65. 

Laws,  Nature,  source  and  kinds  of: 
Thomas  Aquinas,  123-8;  Marsig- 
lio,  162  ff;  Bodin,  235-6;  Hooker, 
246  ff;  Grotius,  260  ff;  Hobbes, 
340  ff ;  Montesquieu,  441  ff;  Rous- 
seau, 494  ff;  supremacy  of  laws: 
Aristotle,  68,  76-9;  Vindicia,  211- 
3;  Harrington,  366-8. 

Laws  of  nations:  Bodin,  234-5; 
Hooker,  251-3;  Grotius,  259-66; 
Montesquieu,  444-5. 

Laws  of  nature :  Bodin,  232 ;  Hooker, 
246  ff;  Grotius,  266-8;  Hobbes, 
306-16,  347-9;  Locke,  386  ff; 
Montesquieu,  443-4;  Bentham, 
547  ff. 

Legislative,  Supremacy  of:  Marsig- 
lio,  165  ff;  Locke,  406,  413  ff. 

Liberty:  Aristotle,  87-8;  Dante, 
146-8;  Grotius,  273-4;  Milton, 
286-97;  Hobbes,  331-9;  Harring- 
ton, 366-7;  Locke,  386,  394,  396, 
402,  404,  406-11;  Montesquieu, 
463  ff;  Rousseau,  479-86,  504  ff; 
Paine,  5 1 8-2  2,529.  See  also  Limi- 
tations upon  government,  Free 
government,  Sovereignty  of  the 
people. 

Limitations  upon  government:  Cal- 
vin, 195-201;  Vindicia,  208  ff; 
Milton,  282  ff;  Locke,  406  ff; 
Paine,  524-7;  Bentham,  549  ff. 

Limitations  upon  sovereignty:  Bodin, 
233-5;  Grotius,  273-6;  Hobbes, 
335-7 ;  Rousseau,  491  ff;  Bentham, 

553-7- 

Locke:  definition  of  political  power, 
386;  on  the  state  of  nature,  386  ff; 
on  the  prevalence  of  reason  and 
right  in  the  state  of  nature,  386-8; 
on  the  execution  of  laws  of  nature, 
388-91;  on  the-  "state  of  war," 
391-3;  on  the  nature  of  political 
society,  393-6;  on  the  origin  of 
political  society,  396-402;  on  the 
ends  of  political  society,  402-5; 
on  the  forms  of  political  society, 
405-6;  on  the  supremacy  of  the 
legislative,  406;  on  the  limits  of 
legislative  power,  406-11;  on  the 
separation  of  powers,  411-3;  on 
the  subordination  of  executive  to 
legislative  power,  413-9;  on 
usurpation  and  tyranny,  419-25; 
on  the  dissolution  of  governments 
and  the  right  of  resistance,  425-36. 


Machiavelli:  on  the  qualities  of  a 
successful  prince,,  173  ff:  liberality 
and  parsimon«ft  174-5 ;  cruelty  and 
clemency,  176-8;  extent  of  the 
obligation  of  promise^  17  8-80;  the 
avoidance  of  odious  dfc  <«ontemp- 
tible  conduct,  i8o*-2j;  How  to  gain 
a  reputation,  182-5. 

Majority  rule:  Marsiglio,  162-7; 
Hobbes,  319-22;  Locke,  396-8. 

Marriage,  Governmental  regulation 
of:  Plato,  27-31. 

Marsiglio:  on  the  origin  and  purpose 
of  the  state,  160-2;  on  the  people 
as  supreme  legislative  authority, 
162-5;  Pn  tne  distinction  between 
legislative  and  executive  func- 
tions, 165-7. 

Milton:  on  the  natural  freedom  of 
men,  281 ;  on  the  popular  origin  of 
government,  282-4;  on  the  right 
of  resistance  to  tyrants,  285-^6;  on 
the  freedom  of  reason  and  opinion, 
286-91;  on  the  government  of  a 
free  commonwealth,  291-4;  on  the 
liberty  of  conscience,  294-5;  on 
civil  and  political  rights,  295-7. 

Middle  class,  Government  by:  Aris- 
totle, 84-7. 

Monarchy:  Aristotle,  73-9;  Polyb- 
ius,  109-11;  Thomas  Aquinas, 
129-33;  Dante,  141  ff;  Machia- 
velli, 173  ff;  Vindicia,  207  ff; 
Bodin,  231  ff;  Grotius,  270  ff; 
Hobbes,  328-31;  Harrington,  359- 
61;  Montesquieu,  452-4,  458-60. 

Montesquieu:  on  laws  in  general, 
441-3;  on  the  laws  of  nature,  443- 
4;  on  positive  laws,  444  ff;  on  the 
laws  of  nations,  444-5 ;  on  political 
laws,  445;  on  the  "spirit  of  laws," 
445-6;  on  the  nature  and  princi- 
ples of  different  forms  of  govern- 
ment, 446  ff;  on  the  nature  of 
democracy,  446-50;  on  the  nature 
of  aristocracy,  450-2;  on  the  na- 
ture of  monarchy,  452-4;  on  the 
nature  of  despotic  government, 
454-5;  on  the  principle  of  democ- 
racy, 455-7;  on  the  principle  of 
aristocracy,  457-8;  on  the  princi- 
ple of  monarchical  government, 
458^-60;  on  the  principle  of  des- 
potic government,  460-1;  on  the 
nature  of  political  liberty,  463-4; 
on  separation  of  powers  and 
checks  and  balances  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  England,  464-74. 


572 


INDEX 


Natural  law:    see  Law  of  nature. 
Natural  rights :    Milton,  281;  Hobbes, 

306  ff;  Locke,  386-94;  Paine,  518 

ff,  529. 

Natural  society:  Bentham,  536  ff. 
Nature,   State  of:     Hobbes,  302  ff; 

Locke,  386  ff;  Montesquieu,  443- 

4;  Bentham,  536  ff. 

Offices,  Methods  of  filling:  Aristotle, 
92-4. 

Oligarchy:  Aristotle,  73-4,  80  ff; 
Pplybius,  1 1 1-2. 

Opinion,  Freedom  of:  Milton,  286  ff; 
denied:  Hobbes,  323. 

Origin  of  the  state  (or  of  government) : 
Plato,  3-10;  Aristotle,  55-8,  60- 
i;  Polybius,  109-11;  Thomas 
Aquinas,  129-32;  Marsiglio,  161- 
2;  Vindicia,  207-11,  213-4;  Bpdin, 
227-9;  Hooker,  242-6;  Milton, 
281-4;  Hobbes,  307-8;  316-9; 
Locke,  396  ff;  Rousseau,  479  ff; 
Paine,  522  ff;  Bentham,  541-6. 

Paine:  on  reasoning  from  precedents, 
518-9;  on  the  natural  rights  of 
man,  519-21;  on  the  basis  of  civil 
rights,  521-2;  on  government  as  a 
necessary  evil,  522-3;  on  the  pur- 
pose of  government,  523-4;  on 
the  sphere  of  government,  524-7; 
on  representative  government, 
527-32. 

Philosophers,  Government  by:  Plato, 

35  ff- 

Plato:  on  the  origin  of  the  state  in 
the  division  of  labor,  4  ff;  on 
justice  in  relation  to  the  divi- 
sion of  labor,  8-9;  on  the  ori- 
gin of  the  warrior  class,  10;  on 
the  selection  and  training  of 
guardians  of  the  state,  n  ff;  on 
the  auxiliaries,  13  ff ;  on  the  life  of 
the  guardians,  15-17;  on  the  anal- 
ogy between  virtues  and  the 
classes  of  the  state,  18-19;  on  the 
virtues  of  guardians,  19-21 ;  on  the 
virtues  of  warriors,  2 1-23 ;  the  defi- 
nition of  justice,  23-26;  on  the 
community  of  wives  and  children, 
26  ff;  on  the  breeding  and  rearing 
of  children,  27-35;  on  government 
by  philosophers,  35  ff;  on  the 
selection  and  education  of  philos- 
opher-guardians, 43-48. 

Polity:    Aristotle,  73,  82  ff. 

Polybius:  on  the  forms  of  constitu- 
tion, 107-8;  on  the  origin  of  a 


constitution,  108-10;  on  the  cycle 
of  forms  of  government,  110-13; 
on  checks  and  balances  in  the 
Roman  constitution,  113-17. 

Popular  sovereignty:  Marsiglio,  162- 
7;  Vindicia,  208  ff;  Milton,  281  ff; 
Locke,  413,  425  ff;  Rousseau,  486 
ff,  504  ff;  denied  by  Grotius:  270- 
3.  Cf.  also  Democracy,  and  Re- 
publican government. 

Psychological  influences  in  govern- 
ment: Harrington,  365-9. 

Representation  in  government:  Rous- 
seau, 506  ff. 

Representative  government:  Paine, 
527-32. 

Republican  government:  Montes- 
quieu, 446-50;  Paine,  527-32. 

Resistance,  Right  of:  Vindicia,  215- 
21 ;  Milton,  285-6;  Locke,  425  ff; 
denied  by  Hobbes:  320-2. 

Revolution  in  governments:  Aristotle, 
96-9;  Polybius,  io6-;i3. 

Rotation  in  office:  Harrington,  374  ff. 

Rousseau:  on  the  problem  of  political 
philosophy,  479-80;  on  the  patri- 
archal theory  of  the  origin  of  the 
state,  480—1 ;  on  the  "right  of  the 
strongest,"  481-2;  on  slavery, 
482-3 ;  on  the  contractual  origin  of 
the  state,  483-6;  on  the  nature  and 
location  of  sovereignty,  486-8;  on 
the  attributes  of  sovereignty,  488- 
91;  on  the  limits  of  sovereignty, 
49 1-4 ;  on  law,  494-6 ;  on  the  nature 
of  government,  496-500;  on  the 
forms  of  government,  500-4 ;  on  the 
maintenance  of  sovereign  author- 
ity, 504  ff;  on  representation  in 
government,  506-9;  on  the  con- 
tractual theory  of  government, 
509-10;  on  the  institution  of  gov- 
ernment, 510-11;  on  the  preven- 
tion of  usurpations  in  govern- 
ment, 511-12. 

Royalty:    see  Monarchy. 

Separation  of  powers:  Locke,  411  ff; 
Montesquieu,  464  ff ;  cf.  Marsiglio, 
165  ff;  and  Harrington,  369  ff. 
See  also  Checks  and  balances. 

Size  of  state:  Aristotle,  94-6;  Rous- 
seau, 505-6,  509. 

Slavery:  Aristotle,  58-60;  Rousseau, 
482-3. 

Social  contract:  Hooker,  245-6; 
Hobbes,  307-9,  318-22;  Locke, 
394-405;  Rousseau,  483  ff;  criti- 


INDEX 


573 


cised  by  Bentham,  542  ff.  See 
also  Contract  theory  of  govern- 
ment. 

Sovereignty:  Aristotle,  64-71;  Bodin, 
230-6;  Grotius,  269-76;  Hobbes, 
320-7;  Rousseau,  486-94;  Ben- 
tham, 536-42;  cf.  Locke,  406-14, 
425  ff,  and  Montesquieu,  464  ft. 
See  also  Limitations  upon  sover- 
eignty, and  Popular  sovereignty. 

Sphere  of  government:  see  Ends  of  the 
state. 

State  (or  political  society),  general 
definition  and  nature:  Aristotle, 
55-61;  Marsiglio,  160-1;  Bodin, 
226-8;  Grotius,  269;  Hobbes,  319- 
20;  Locke,  393  ff;  Rousseau,  485- 
6;  Bentham,  536  ff.  See  also  End 
of  the  state,  and  Origin  of  the 
state. 

State  of  nature:     see  Nature. 

State  of  war  (in  the  state  of  nature): 
Hobbes,  304-6;  Locke,  391-3. 

Temporal  and  spiritual  authority, 
Relations  between:  Dante,  150- 
55;  Marsiglio,  162;  Calvin,  191  ff. 

Thomas  Aquinas:  on  reason  in  law, 
123-5;  on  the  common  good  as  the 
object  of  law,  125-6;  on  the  source 
of  law,  126-7;  on  promulgation  of 
law,  127-8;  the  definition  of  law, 
128;  on  the  origin  of  political 


authority,  129-30;  on  the  perfect 
political  community,  130-2;  on 
the  superiority  of  monarchial  gov- 
ernment, 132-3;  on  the  ends  of 
government,  133-5. 
Tyranny:  Aristotle,  73;  Polybius, 
1 08,  iio-n;  Machiayelli,  173  ff; 
Vindicia,  215-21;  Milton,  285-6: 
Hobbes,  327-8;  Locke,  419-25! 
See  also  Despotism,  and  cf.  Re- 
sistance, right  of. 

Unity,  essential  in  the  state:    Dante, 

147  ff. 

Universal  monarchy:    Dante,  146  ff. 
Usurpation,  methods  and  prevention: 

Locke,  419  ff;  Rousseau,  511  ff. 
Utility,  as  a  principle  of  law  and  right: 

Grotius,  260-5;  Bentham,  542  ff, 

545-8,  555-7- 

VindicicR  contra  Tyrannos:  on  the 
divine  and  popular  institution  of 
kingship,  207-8;  on  the  superiority 
of  people  to  king,  208-10;  on  the 
origin  of  kingship,  210-11;  on  the 
supremacy  of  laws,  211-13;  on  the 
contractual  basis  of  kingship,  213- 
15;  on  the  right  of  resistance  to  a 
tyrant  without  title,  215-17;  on  the 
right  of  resistance  to  a  tyrant  by 
practice,  217-21. 


